Khirbet Qeiyafa in The Shephelah

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Year: 2017
Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah: Papers Presented at a Colloquium of the

Swiss Society for Ancient Near Eastern Studies Held at the University of
Bern, September 6, 2014
Edited by: Schroer, Silvia ; Münger, Stefan
Abstract: Excavations at the Early Iron Age site of Khirbet Qeiyafa (Israel), directed from 2007 to 2011
by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the
Israel Antiquities Authority, have attracted considerable scholarly and media attention since the very
second season, when the discovery of an inscribed ostracon sparked controversies over the site’s historical
significance and nature. Located at the entrance of the Elah Valley, protected by a casemate wall and
two monumental gateways, the settlement of Qeiyafa existed for barely half a century. Its dating and the
correlation of the archaeological evidence with the regional history, not least the rise of an early Judahite
monarchy, have become matters of intense academic debate. Resulting from a colloquium of the Swiss
Society for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, this volume offers a condensed report by main excavator Yosef
Garfinkel as well as several in-depth studies on archaeological, historical, epigraphical, iconographical and
biblical issues.
Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich

ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-137143
Edited Scientific Work
Published Version
Originally published at:

Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah: Papers Presented at a Colloquium of the Swiss Society for Ancient
Near Eastern Studies Held at the University of Bern, September 6, 2014. Edited by: Schroer, Silvia;
Münger, Stefan (2017). Fribourg, Switzerland / Göttingen, Germany: Academic Press / Vandenhoeck
Ruprecht.
Schroer/Münger (eds.) Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah
ORBIS BIBLICUS ET ORIENTALIS
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Silvia Schroer (*1958) is a professor for Old Testament and Ancient Near
Eastern Cultures at the Faculty of Theology, University of Bern. Email: silvia.
schroer@theol.unibe.ch
Stefan Münger (*1967) is a lecturer at the Institute of Jewish Studies, Faculty of
Theology, University of Bern, and co-director of the Kinneret Regional Project.
Email: stefan.muenger@theol.unibe.ch
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 282
Silvia Schroer / Stefan Münger (eds.)
Khirbet Qeiyafa
in the Shephelah
Papers Presented at a Colloquium of
the Swiss Society for Ancient Near Eastern
Studies Held at the University of Bern,
September 6, 2014
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Table of Contents
Editors’ Preface.................................................................................................. 3
Yosef GARFINKEL
Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah: Data and Interpretations ............................. 5
Aren M. MAEIR
Khirbet Qeiyafa in its Regional Context: A View From Philistine Gath ........ 61
Thomas RÖMER
Khirbet Qeiyafa – Some Thoughts of a Biblical Scholar. Response to
Yosef Garfinkel and Aren Maeir ..................................................................... 73
Benjamin SASS
The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon in its Setting .................................................... 87
Stefan MÜNGER
Khirbet Qeiyafa – A View from Tel Kinrot in the Eastern Lower Galilee ... 113
Silvia SCHROER
The Iconography of the Shrine Models of Khirbet Qeiyafa .......................... 137
Ernst Axel KNAUF

Afterthoughts on Qēyāfah .............................................................................. 159
Patrick WYSSMANN
Khirbet Qeiyafa – A Bibliography................................................................. 161
Editors’ Preface
It is unusual that an archaeological site, which was previously practically un-
known, electrified archaeologists of the Southern Levant and biblical scholars
in such a short time and equally made headlines not only in scholarly literature,
but also in newspapers throughout the world. The excavations at Khirbet
Qeiyafa at the entrance to the Elah Valley, carried out by the Hebrew Universi-
ty of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority and directed by Yosef
Garfinkel and Saar Ganor, caused sensation from the very beginning. Already
in the second year of excavation an inscribed ostracon was found, which was
widely and controversially discussed among scholars. Later, other spectacular
finds followed, e.g., the two shrine models discovered at the very end of the
2011 season, which are analyzed in depth in this publication.
The dating of the archaeological remains also created attention, for accord-
ing to the excavators the settlement, which was enclosed by a wall with two
gates, only existed for a relatively short time-span of 50 years during the 10th
century BCE – the time of the early Judahite Monarchy. From the moment at
which the excavations were associated with the name of David, the first great
king of Judah and Israel, Khirbet Qeiyafa was on everyone’s lips. Immediately,
vigorous debates erupted about the dating of the remains, the biblical identifi-
cation of the site, and the ethnic allocation of the material culture.
Meanwhile, buses soon brought archaeologically interested tourists to the
small parking lot near the foot of the hill, since an excavation with such spec-
tacular and coherent horizontal exposure of an ancient town is rare: walls, gate
complexes, dozens of houses one beside the other next to the casemate wall,
rooms with indications of cultic activity, plazas and even a small quarry could
all be seen at this one site.
The discussions about the finds and findings from Khirbet Qeiyafa among
the scholarly community are at times quite heated, not just in Israel. When we
invited the members of the Swiss Society for Ancient Near Eastern Studies
(SGOA) to a conference on September 6, 2014 with the excavator Yosef Gar-
finkel and other renowned presenters, it was our aim to facilitate scholarly
discussion without undue excitement and at a level at which the main issues
could be easily understood. Thanks to the informative and factual contribu-
tions, we were able to achieve this aim. The conference participants were able
to get a good overview of the significance of the site, the excavations, individ-
ual finds and the archaeological and cultural-historical context. Encouraging
feedback has led us to make the results of the conference available to the wider
public through the series ‘Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis’. Even though publica-
tions discussing Khirbet Qeiyafa are quite numerous, particularly in Israel and
in the English-speaking world, based on its concise layout and content the
present volume should nevertheless prove useful to readers. In response to the
comprehensive, though naturally condensed, report of the excavator, the con-
4
tributions of Aren Maeir (Bar Ilan University) and Thomas Römer (University
of Lausanne/Collège de France) formulate scholarly questions and comments
from various angles and at times also express disagreement. Further contribu-
tions continue the discussion about some particular subjects: Benjamin Sass
(Tel Aviv University) on the epigraphic corpus of Khirbet Qeiyafa; Stefan
Münger (University of Bern) on some details of the material culture; Silvia
Schroer (University of Bern) on the iconography of the shrine models. A short
epilogue by Ernst Axel Knauf (University of Bern) concludes the present vol-
ume.
We want to express our thanks to Yosef Garfinkel for his presence and his
considered discussion. We also thank all the colleagues who presented at the
conference and later provided these presentations to us in written and edited
form. For the co-organization of the conference our thanks go to Dr. Patrick
Wyssmann. We gratefully present his bibliography on Khirbet Qeiyafa in an
appendix. We would also like to thank Tim Frank for his revision and correc-
tion of the language and grammar of the contributions. Nancy Rahn and Myri-
am Röthlisberger helped us in the preparation of the manuscript.
We thank the executive committee of the Swiss Society for Ancient Near
Eastern Studies (SGOA) for the friendly support of the conference and the
inclusion in its conference series. We are grateful to the editors of the series
‘Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis’ and to SGOA for including this publication in the
series and for the financial support, respectively.
Bern, August 2016

Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah:
Data and Interpretations
Yosef GARFINKEL
Khirbet Qeiyafa is a 2.3-hectare site located in the Shephelah region of Israel.

During seven excavation seasons (2007–2013), ca. 20% of the site was uncov-
ered and a large fortified city of the Iron Age IIA was unearthed. The radio-
metric dating of this city to the early 10th century BCE is based on 27 samples.
As the city was destroyed suddenly, very rich assemblages of finds in various
categories were retrieved. The new data completely change our understanding
of the early 10th century BCE in the Shephelah, a poorly known era prior to the
Khirbet Qeiyafa excavations. The results of the excavation bear out the biblical
tradition relating to state formation processes in Judah as early as 1000 BCE,
the time of King David.
Since the 1980s, various scholars have attempted to create an alternative
understanding of the birth of the Judean Kingdom, claiming that it was founded
only at the end of the 8th century BCE (300 years after King David) or at the
end of the 9th century BCE (200 years after King David). The new results from
Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judah from the time of King David, severely
challenge these approaches. It is therefore not surprising that various aspects of
the site and its interpretation are hotly debated.
Introduction
A number of European explorers visited Khirbet Qeiyafa during the 19th centu-
ry: Victor Guérin (1868: 331–332), Claude Reignier Conder and Horatio Her-
bert Kitchener (1883: 118). In the latters’ summary list of Arabic and English
names, the site appears in Arabic as Khirbat Kiafa, translated as “the ruin of
tracking footsteps” (Conder and Kitchener 1881: 308). During the 20th century
the site was neglected; it is not referred to in the works of the leading scholars
in the field of biblical historical geography, such as William Foxwell Albright,
Benjamin Mazar, Yohanan Aharoni or Zecharia Kallai. In the 1980s, an exten-
sive archaeological survey was conducted in the Shephelah region by Yehuda
Dagan (1993). He gives the first detailed description of the site and includes a
map, which mentions an “upper” and a “lower” city. In the early 2000s, Zvi
Greenhut surveyed the site and drew up a schematic plan of the upper city and
its city wall (Greenhut et al. 2001: 115–117). None of these surveys, however,
recognized the large fortified city of the 10th century BCE.
6 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 1: Map of the southern Levant and the location of Khirbet Qeiyafa.
Thus, in 2007, when we started to excavate the site, the name “Khirbet
Qeiyafa” was still virtually unknown both to archaeologists and to the public.
In 2008, however, Khirbet Qeiyafa became world-famous when the New York
Times dedicated a full page to a description of the site, its excavation and the
preliminary results. Why has the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa attracted so much
interest? In order to illuminate the huge contribution of the site to archaeology,
history and biblical studies, the following article is organized in three parts: (1)
the data, (2) interpreting Khirbet Qeiyafa in the context of modern research,
and (3) Khirbet Qeiyafa and the biblical tradition.
KHIRBET QEIYAFA IN THE SHEPHELAH 7
Part I: The Data
1. Location
Khirbet Qeiyafa is located ca. 30 km southwest of Jerusalem in the western
part of the Upper Shephelah (Israel Grid 19500–622700) on the summit of a
hill that borders the Elah Valley on the north. This is a regionally strategic
location on the main road from Philistia and the coastal plain to the hill coun-
try. Two kilometers to the west is Tell Zakariyeh, commonly identified as bib-
lical Azekah, and 2.5 km to the southeast is Khirbet Shuwayka, commonly
identified as biblical Socho. About 12 km west of Khirbet Qeiyafa is Tell eṣ-
Ṣafi, the major Philistine city of Gath. In the 10th and 9th centuries BCE Gath
was a prominent city-state, over 30 hectares in size. It was the largest political
unit in the region and the closest to Khirbet Qeiyafa (Fig. 1).
Fig. 2: Map of Khirbet Qeiyafa and its vicinity.

8 YOSEF GARFINKEL
2. The Site
The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is not a classic Near Eastern tell, a multi-layered
mound with a thick accumulation of remains caused by human activity, but
rather a short-lived site with only a shallow accumulation (Figs. 2–4). Many of
its remains still stand to this very day. In addition, about 30% of the site’s area
consists of exposed bedrock lacking any archaeological accumulation. The
excavations revealed a long sequence of periods represented (Table 1): Late
Chalcolithic, Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age IIA, Late Persian-Early Hellenistic,
Early Roman, Late Roman-Byzantine, Early Islamic and Late Islamic. In addi-
tion, a later wall encircled Khirbet Qeiyafa, mainly on the west and also on the
east. This wall, which enclosed an area of 16 hectares, was probably built in
the Ottoman period (Davidovich 2009). This long sequence gives the impres-
sion that Khirbet Qeiyafa is a tell site with a deep accumulation of archaeologi-
cal sediments. However, in large parts of the site bedrock is exposed above the
topsoil and there are basically only a few short episodes of occupation.
Stratum Period Type of occupation

I Ottoman Farm, lime kiln
Early Islamic Agricultural terraces
IIa Late Roman-Byzantine Fortified farmstead and agricultural
settlement, mainly in Area A
Early Roman No architectural remains
IIb Late Hellenistic (Hasmonean) One building in Area F
IIIa Phase 2: Late Persian-Early Hellenistic Fortress and administrative center
IIIb Phase 1: Late Persian-Early Hellenistic Fortress and administrative center
IV Early Iron Age IIA (ca. 1000 BCE) Fortified city
V Middle Bronze Age No architectural remains
VI Late Chalcolithic No architectural remains
Table 1: The settlement history of Khirbet Qeiyafa.

3. Methodology and the Excavations
In 2007 to 2013 a large-scale excavation project was launched on behalf of the
Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, directed by
Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor. In 2009–2011 Michael Hasel of the Southern
Adventist University joined the project as an associate director (Garfinkel and
Ganor 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2009, 2010, 2012a, 2013, 2014; Garfinkel, Ganor
and Hasel 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2014; Garfinkel et al.
2009; Garfinkel, Kreimerman and Zilberg 2016).
Fig. 3: Aerial photograph of Khirbet Qeiyafa at the end of the 2012 excavation season
(looking north).
Fig. 4: The Iron Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa at the end of the 2013 excavation season (looking
south).
10 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 5: Plan of the Iron Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa.
There are a number of methodological factors that guided our work at Khir-
bet Qeiyafa:
− Choosing the Site: Khirbet Qeiyafa is a relatively small site (2.3 hec-
tares) with a short-lived occupation (two main periods), thin accumula-
tion (two meters maximum) and a rich Iron Age layer. Only a short time
was needed to uncover a meaningful sample of the Iron Age city.
− Size of Horizontal Exposure: Our aim was to uncover 20–25% of the
site, providing a significant sample of the city wall, gates, dwellings and
public buildings.
− Sampling Strategy: Various parts of the site were tested (Areas A–F),
each including a number of dwellings.
Fig. 6: Area A: the large administrative building below the Byzantine fortified farmstead in
the central and highest location in the city. The thick black lines indicate the location of
relevant walls that were removed during the excavations.
− Timeframe for Field Project: The field project was limited in time, con-
sisting of seven excavation seasons altogether.
− Excavation Strategy: Complete architectural units were excavated. In
each square (5×5 m) an experienced archaeologist supervised 3–4 vol-
unteers. This high ratio of staff to volunteers ensured careful excavation
and documentation. All collapsed sediments above floors were sieved
by means of a 2 mm mesh, which retrieved a large number of small
finds such as seals, scarabs, beads, bone artifacts and small metal ob-
jects. Bones of microfauna (2–3 mm) were collected by wet sieving by
means of a 1 mm mesh.
− Documentation: The careful documentation of the stratigraphic relation-
ship of walls, usage of raw materials, and stone size is instructive in the
study of the city’s building process. Photographs were constantly taken,
as well as aerial photographs at the end of each season.
During seven excavation seasons the expedition examined six areas inside the
fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, as well as a small-scale investigation in an
area located some 100 m to the west (Fig. 5).
Area A
In the central, highest part of Khirbet Qeiyafa, excavated as Area A, about
1000 m2 were uncovered (Fig. 6). Major remains of a large rectangular build-
12 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 7: Aerial photograph of Area B at the end of the 2011 excavation season.
ing, a fortified farmstead of the Byzantine period whose maximum measure-

ments are 43×37 m, were visible here even before excavation began. In the
center of the building was a large open courtyard with leveled bedrock exposed
in some parts. Two large cisterns were cut into bedrock, the opening of one of
them was covered by a modern cast concrete frame. This building complex is
closed on its eastern, southern and western sides by a row of rooms and on the
northern side by a massive wall. Since excavation of this building was not
completed, various aspects of its plan remain unclear. It was built in the Byzan-
tine period (4th–6th centuries CE) and was rebuilt during this period, perhaps as
a result of earthquake damage. As this building was founded on bedrock, most
of the earlier remains in this spot were obliterated. However, fragmentary re-
mains of several periods were observed below the building: a late Second
Temple period silo and miqve (ritual bath), sporadic activities of the Late Per-
sian-Early Hellenistic periods, massive Iron Age walls, and Middle Bronze
Age pottery and sediments in bedrock cavities.
The remains of the large Iron Age building included a 30 m long wall with
its southeastern and southwestern corners. The wall is two to three times wider
than those of the regular Iron Age houses uncovered in Areas B, C and D, an
indication of a structure some three stories high.
Area B
Part of the western side of the site was excavated as Areas B and D (Fig. 7).
This part of the site was selected for excavation because the survey of the site
indicated that a city gate might be located here. About 800 m2 were opened
Fig. 8: Aerial photograph of Area C at the end of the 2012 excavation season.
(Kang 2014a). The uppermost architectural remains were from the Late Per-
sian-Early Hellenistic period, dated on the basis of coins found here and in
other excavation areas to 350–270 BCE. Below these, the expedition uncov-
ered the remains of the Iron Age city, constructed on bedrock. The fortifica-
tions included a four-chambered city gate with a massive in situ threshold and
a casemate city wall, with houses abutting the wall and incorporating the case-
mates as their rear rooms. While the Late Persian-Early Hellenistic layer was
peacefully abandoned, the Iron Age city was destroyed suddenly and rich de-
struction debris was unearthed in every building. In the second building north
of the gate we found the famous Qeiyafa ostracon, an inscription written in ink
on a pottery sherd.
Area C
Part of the southern side of the site was excavated as Area C, because the sur-
vey of the site indicated that an additional city gate might be located here (Fig.
8). About 1800 m2 were opened, the largest horizontal exposure at the site
(Freikman and Garfinkel 2014). The uppermost level dates from the Late Per-
sian-Early Hellenistic period, and below it the Iron Age city was found, built
on bedrock. Two earlier periods were represented as well, though they lacked
architecture: Late Chalcolithic finds were found in a limited spot and Middle
Bronze Age pottery sherds were scattered all over. The massive Iron Age ar-
chitecture included a four-chambered gate, a gate piazza that extended along
three casemates and five dwelling units. Here the same town plan as in Area B
was uncovered, with houses at the edges of the city abutting the casemate wall
14 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 9: Aerial photograph of Area D at the end of the 2011 excavation season.
and incorporating the casemates as their rear rooms. With the destruction of the
Iron Age city, the houses collapsed and the floors were found covered with
hundreds of broken pottery vessels, stone implements, metal artifacts made of
bronze and iron, bone implements, beads, Egyptian scarabs and seals. In two
houses the expedition uncovered cultic rooms, rich in installations of various
kinds and cultic paraphernalia.
Area D
This area is adjacent to Area B on the south. Nearly 1000 m2 were uncovered
(Fig. 9). The uppermost remains are again dated to the Late Persian-Early Hel-
lenistic period and included a large structure (some 700 m2 in area) that con-
tained an olive oil press (Hasel 2014). The Iron Age remains included a large
Iron Age gate piazza with one building adjacent to it.
Area E
Part of the eastern side of the site was excavated as Area E (Fig. 10). Only two
squares, ca. 50 m2, were opened and part of a casemate city wall was uncov-
ered (Kang 2014b). The preservation at this location was very impressive, with
the city wall standing to a height of over three meters.
Fig. 10: Aerial photograph of Area E at the end of the 2011 excavation season.
Fig. 11 Aerial photograph of Area F at the end of the 2013 excavation season.
16 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 12: Aerial photograph of Area W at the end of the 2012 excavation season.
Area F
Part of the northern side of the site was excavated as Area F, in which ca. 350
m2 were uncovered (Fig. 11). The expedition started work here to obtain more
information about the city wall casemates and the pattern of their openings.
After the excavation of nearly 50 m along the city wall at different spots, we
finally located a point at which the openings of two casemates were found
adjacent to one another, unlike the regular pattern. At exactly this spot a large
pillar building was uncovered, with some of the pillars still in their original
position. The building was extensively reused in the Late Persian-Early Hellen-
istic era.
Area W
This area is located some 100 m west of the fortified Iron Age city (Figs. 2,
12). During a survey of the site conducted by Uri Davidovich, a massive corner
of a building was observed. In the seasons of 2012 and 2013 about 100 m2
were uncovered. The excavations revealed an isolated square tower, probably
used by local farmers. All the pottery here was of the 7th century BCE, includ-
ing three jar handles with rosette impressions, which are typical of this period
in Judah. A fragment of a clay female figurine of the type known as the “Jude-
an pillar figurine” was uncovered.
The location of the excavated areas all over the site gave us a good picture
of the fortification system, the peripheral belt of dwellings and two large ad-
Fig. 13: Schematic plans of the two Iron Age city gates of Khirbet Qeiyafa and the adjacent
city wall. Note that all the casemate openings are located in the corner furthest from the
gate.
ministrative buildings, one in Area F and the other in Area A. The Iron Age
city was destroyed suddenly, as indicated by the numerous artifacts uncovered
on the floors of each building. Altogether thousands of pottery vessels, hun-
dreds of stone tools and dozens of metal artifacts were uncovered. Hence, the
Khirbet Qeiyafa excavations have produced an extremely rich material culture
assemblage dated to the late 11th/early 10th century BCE.
4. The Iron Age City

Thanks to the shallow accumulation and the massive stone construction, it was
possible to uncover a large part of the Iron Age city during a relatively short
time. During seven excavation seasons in 2007–2013, ca. 20% of the city was
18 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 14: Stable room in Building C2, with three pillars and two feeding troughs.
uncovered and most of the features relevant to an ancient city were revealed
(Garfinkel and Ganor 2009; Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2010, 2011b, 2012b):
City wall
A total of nearly 300 m of the city wall was excavated in Areas B, C, D, E and
F, and altogether 26 complete casemates and 16 segments of casemates were
uncovered (Figs. 7–11, 13). The outer wall is the more massive; it is about 1.5
m wide and was built of large stones, sometimes 2–3 m long and weighing up
to 8 tons. The inner wall is composed of a solid wall, parallel to the outer one,
and short perpendicular walls that divide the space into casemates. The inner
wall was less massive, about 1 m wide, and was usually constructed from me-
dium-sized stones weighing 100–200 kg. The average length of a casemate is
about 6.5 m. Since the city wall is approximately 600 m long, there appear to
have been approximately 90 casemates around the city. The openings of the
casemates are consistently located in the corner that is furthest away from the
city gate. In many cases, steps or staircases led down to the interior floor level
of the casemates. This is because the city wall was built on a slope and the
outer wall is at a lower level than the inner one.
Watchtower and stable

In Area C, the fifth casemate northeast of the gate is twice the width of an or-
dinary casemate and has thicker walls. The unusually thick walls were con-
structed to support a greater weight than elsewhere, and hence this casemate
was higher than the others. This appears to have been a watchtower, located at
Southern gate Western gate

Location in site Opens onto the road descending Opens onto the road going west
directly to the Elah Valley and toward Philistia
thence toward Jerusalem
Description of gate Four chambers Four chambers
Width of entrance 3.9 m 3.9 m
Gate façade Monumental stone on each side: Large stones
the most imposing gate façade
known in Israel
Threshold No threshold found: robbed? Single 8-ton stone with rock-cut
step
Drainage channel Located in the gate passage, on Located in the gate passage, on
the left side as one enters the the left side as one enters the
city city
Covering of drainage Most cover stones are missing Original cover stones in situ
channel
Location of gate To the left of the entrance To the right of the entrance
piazza
Length of gate piazza Three casemates Four casemates
Casemate wall Abuts the gate on the eastern Abuts the gate on both sides
side; the western side is
incorporated into the casemate
Location of casemate In the right corner of casemates In the right corner of casemates
entrances to the right of the gate and in the to the right of the gate and in the
left corner of casemates to the left corner of casemates to the
left of the gate left of the gate
Standing stone Large standing stone found in No standing stone found inside
situ in the center of the first the gate, but the area of the gate
chamber on the left as one enters underwent major changes in a
the city later period; a standing stone in
secondary use was found in a
wall of a house abutting the left
side of the gate
Table 2: Comparison of the two gates at Khirbet Qeiyafa (Fig. 15).
a strategic point where the road approaching the city from the Elah Valley was
visible.
Abutting this tower was a stable, a square structure with three massive
stone pillars and two troughs (Fig. 14).
Two gates
Two city gates were uncovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa, one in the west in Area B
(Figs. 7, 9) and one in the south in Area C (Fig. 8). Both gates were identified
prior to their excavation, thanks to surveys conducted around the city wall. In
these locations the small stones of the upper and later external city wall were
not found above the massive stones of the Iron Age, but instead blocked an
opening between the large stones. In both cases the width of the blocked open-
ing, 3.9 m, was identical. What opening in the city wall could be blocked if not
a gate? Indeed, within a few weeks two large and impressive gates were being
20 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 15: Schematic plans of the two Iron Age gates of Khirbet Qeiyafa. Both gates were the
same size and had the same plan and a drain in their left-hand side. The openings of the city
wall casemates are always located away from the gate (see Fig. 13).
uncovered. Fig. 15 and Table 2 summarizes the data on each gate and shows
how similar they are to each other.
Large open piazzas

Adjacent to the interior of each gate was an open piazza (Fig. 16). In this area
the casemate wall was freestanding and no houses abutted the inner wall. The
piazza next to the southern gate is 20 m long and extends along three case-
mates. This area is bounded on the south by the casemate wall and the city
gate, on the east and west by buildings and on the north by a massive wall. An
opening in the latter wall, 2 m wide, provided the only access into the city.
This would have made it possible to control movement through this narrow
Fig. 16: Schematic plans of the two Iron Age gate piazzas of Khirbet Qeiyafa.
opening, so that not everyone who was allowed into the piazza could proceed
into the city. The piazza next to the western gate is 30 m long and extends
along four casemates. This area is likewise enclosed on all four sides: on the
west by the city wall and gate, on the north and south by buildings and on the
east by a long wall.
The gate piazzas of Khirbet Qeiyafa are noteworthy for an additional fea-
ture unknown at other sites: adjacent to each of them is a cultic room. Although
each of the houses next to the gate has a number of rooms, the room that bor-
ders the gate piazza was selected to serve as the focus of cult. In the ancient
world the populace did not enter temples but gathered next to them in an open
area where a variety of activities could be carried out, such as sacrifice of ani-
mals, worship or dancing. The gate piazzas of Khirbet Qeiyafa apparently ser-
ved in this way for cultic activity, particularly during holidays, when popula-
tions living in nearby villages or even at greater distances would make pilgrim-
ages to the site. The enclosure of these piazzas by walls confined these visitors
to the gate piazzas while denying them access to the inner parts of the city.
22 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 17: Schematic plan of the buildings in Area C. Two cultic rooms were found in this
area: Room G in Building C3 and Room G in Building C10.
A peripheral belt of houses abutting the city wall

A belt of buildings abutting the city wall and incorporating the adjacent case-
mates as rooms was found in each of the excavation areas next to the city wall,
in Areas B, C, D, E and F (Figs. 7–8). In Area B four casemates were uncov-
ered completely, each forming part of a dwelling that incorporated the case-
mate as its rear room.
In accordance with the above mentioned excavation goals, complete archi-
tectural units, 11 buildings in total, were uncovered in Areas B, C and D. The
uncovering of entire buildings enables us to understand their plan, the size of
their rooms, and their spatial organization. In Area C each building seems to
have had an open courtyard, several rooms, a number of casemates, and often a
corridor connecting its different parts (Fig. 17). In the courtyards we often
found tabuns for cooking, showing that this activity was conducted out of
doors. Table 3 summarizes the data for all of the buildings in Area C, in ac-
cordance with the nature of the different spaces and their number in each
house. The large size of the houses and the arrangement of rooms around a
central courtyard seem to indicate that an extended rather than a nuclear family
occupied each building. If this is the case, it is possible that there were similar
large buildings in Area B as well and that Buildings B2 and B3 are actually not
two separate buildings but two wings of a larger complex. Since the eastern
side of these buildings had been completely eroded, this interpretation cannot
be examined by further excavation.
Building Courtyards Corridors Rooms Casemates Total spaces

C1 C A, F, G, D B, E, H 8
C2 B A A1, A2, E, F, G C, D 9
C3 B A C, D, F, G E, H 8
C4 I–H A B, C, D, F, G, K E, J, L 12
C10 E, K A, O B, C, D, F, G, I, L, N, P H, J, M 16
C11 A, B C 3
Table 3: Summary of the different spaces in Area C by building (Fig. 17).
A large pillared storage building

In Area F the excavations uncovered a large rectangular building, 11×15 m in
size and with an area of ca. 160 m2 (Fig. 11). The building had two halls, each
12 m long with a row of pillars in the center, in addition to smaller rooms in
front of the halls. One of these halls was completely excavated and the other
only partly. Since the structure was reused in the Late Persian-Early Hellenistic
period, a complete Iron Age assemblage that could indicate its exact function
could not be retrieved. However, this is clearly not a typical dwelling unit like
those uncovered in Areas B, C and D, but a much more massive building of
public or administrative character. Buildings of a generally similar plan were
elsewhere used for storage or commerce, or as stables (Kochavi 1998). They
are indicative of a strong central authority that collects taxes and redistributes
them to the relevant part of the population.
A major public building

A large and massive building occupied the highest point of the site, near its
center, in Area A (Fig. 6). Even after the major damage caused by the con-
struction of the later Byzantine fortified farmstead, the Iron Age building was
preserved to a length of 30 m on its southern edge, with its southeastern and
southwestern corners. The walls are two to three times wider than those of the
regular Iron Age houses uncovered in Areas B, C and D. Their sheer width
indicates a structure about three stories high. As this building was also located
at the highest point of the site, it must have been an impressive statement in the
city and in the entire regional landscape. It is a clear case of the use of architec-
ture to symbolize political power. This was the central building in the city,
apparently the seat of the governor and the local administration.
24 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 18: Finger-impressed handles; nearly 700 such handles have been found in the
excavated area.
Stone quarries
The outer city wall of Khirbet Qeiyafa was constructed of very large stones,
sometimes 2–3 m long and 4–8 tons in weight. Where did these large stones
come from? Ancient quarries of the Bronze or Iron Ages have only seldom
been reported. Shiloh and Horowitz (1975) found that the quarries in the hill
country were located at nari outcrops on the mounds themselves or on their
slopes. The natural bedrock of Khirbet Qeiyafa is indeed nari and most of the
walls were built from nari stones.
During our fieldwork, stone quarries were noticed at various areas within
the city. The first quarry was already identified in the 2009 season in Area B.
This spot includes a concentration of large stones (1–1.5 m long) cut from all
four sides, but not yet removed. Further studies on this aspect were conducted
in the 2012 excavation season. A concentration of quarrying activity was no-
ticed near the southern city gate, in Area C (Keimer 2014). These observations
indicate that the large stone blocks were quarried from inside the city and slid
down the slope, just a few meters in each case. Thus, there was not one central
quarry at Khirbet Qeiyafa, but many ad hoc locations.
The data presented above clearly indicate that the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa in
the Iron Age was a well planned city. A pleasing symmetry is evident in the
urban layout. The two gates are almost identical: each has a drain on the left of
the entrance, next to each is a large open piazza, and the openings of the case-
Fig. 19: Ashdod Ware I vessels from Khirbet Qeiyafa, imported from the nearby Philistine
territory.
mates in the city wall are always located in the corner farthest from the gate.
Adjacent to each piazza is a cultic room.
Thanks to the large horizontal exposure, we are able to study how the Iron
Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa was physically constructed: the stages of work, the
sources of raw materials and the division of labor (Keimer, Kreimerman and
Garfinkel 2015).
5. The Finds
The Pottery Assemblage

The pottery assemblage uncovered in 2007–2008 was published in our first
excavation report (Kang and Garfinkel 2009a, 2009b). Hoo-Goo Kang is now
proceeding with the analysis of the assemblage, including the pottery uncov-
ered in the entire seven years of excavation, a task that will probably be com-
pleted in the near future (for the time being, see Kang 2013).
26 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 20 Fig. 21
Black Juglets from Khirbet Qeiyafa (left) and a small barrel-shaped juglet of Cypriot Black-
on-White ware from Khirbet Qeiyafa (right).
Four different categories of pottery vessels were found. The first and largest
group is simple local ware, including a limited number of vessel types: shal-
low, rounded bowls, shallow, carinated bowls, kraters with an inverted upper
part and two to six handles, simple juglets, simple jugs, strainer jugs, cooking
pots with an inverted rim, baking trays and storage jars that usually have a
finger impression on one or more of the handles (Fig. 18). Most of these ves-
sels lack decoration. Red slip, sometimes irregularly hand burnished, appears
very rarely on a bowl or a jug. Petrographic analysis has shown that this pot-
tery is made from the local clay that characterizes the Elah Valley.
The second group of pottery is composed of medium-sized vessels of Ash-
dod Ware (Kang and Garfinkel 2009b): strainer jars, pyxides, bottles, juglets
and chalices (Fig. 19). The items are covered with red slip and painted with
horizontal white and black lines. The vessels are made from loess and sandy
clay and are hence not locally made but imported from a production center in
the coastal plain (Ben-Shlomo 2009).
The third group consists of small closed vessels, known as “Black Juglets”
(Fig. 20). Three of these were imported to the site from Transjordan (Cohen-
Weinbergerand Panitz-Cohen 2014). The fourth group consists of two barrel-
shaped juglets of Cypriot Black-on-White ware (Fig. 21; Gilboa 2012; Gil-
boaand Waiman-Barak 2014). Cypriot vessels of the Black-on-Red family,
which is characteristic of the late 10th century BCE, were not found at Khirbet
Qeiyafa.
Metal and Stone Tools

The rich destruction layer at Khirbet Qeiyafa yielded over thirty iron and
bronze tools, mainly weapons: swords, daggers, arrowheads, spearheads and
one bronze axe (Fig. 22). Only few of these have been published previously
(Garfinkel 2009a). The large number of iron implements is unusual for this
Fig. 22: Assortment of weapons: iron daggers, iron swords, a bronze axe and bronze
arrowheads, found in different buildings at Khirbet Qeiyafa.
period and attests to the special importance of this site and its military role.
Three iron swords were found together in a cultic room in Area D. Weapons
are known to have been kept in temples in the ancient Near East (Rowe 1940,
Pl. XXXII,1–15) and this is also referred to in the Bible; thus, e.g., Goliath’s
sword was kept in a cultic place (1 Samuel 21:10). Two pottery crucibles with
bronze slag were found as well, evidence for smelting activities on site.
Over two hundred stone vessels were found (Cohen Klonymus 2014). The
stone tools were made from hard limestone, soft limestone, chalk, basalt,
beachrock, flint and other minerals. Large lower grinding stones were made
from local compact brecciated Mishash flint, an outcrop of which is located a
few kilometers east of the site. It was much easier to exploit this local deposit
than to import heavy basalt slabs from a distance of a hundred kilometers or
more. Nevertheless, some houses contained heavy basalt slabs as well. A few
fragments of small alabaster vessels were discovered, probably indicative of
trade connections with Egypt.
Animal Bones
A large assemblage of animal bones was discovered in the Iron Age IIA city.
This was analyzed by the expedition’s zooarchaeologist Ron Kehati (2009). No
pig bones were uncovered.
28 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Scarabs, Seals and Other Small Finds

Various small finds were retrieved from the destruction layer of the Iron Age
IIA city of Khirbet Qeiyafa. Many of these were found during the extensive
sieving of the site’s sediment through 2 mm mesh. These include Egyptian sca-
rabs, locally made stamp seals, stone beads and incised bone pendants. These
interesting find categories are currently under analysis (on the seals, see for the
time being Schroer and Wyssmann 2012; Klingbeil 2016).
Exchange Networks
Trade is a strong indicator of the various direct and indirect connections main-
tained by the city. It may also point to the city’s level of social organization
and economic strength. The level of international connections can usually be
measured by the quantity of items that arrived from different distances. At the
Iron Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, there were trade connections with both near
and far entities:
a. Trade connections within a radius of 10–20 km: Pottery vessels of Ashdod

Ware were imported from Philistia (Fig. 19). The ornamentation of these
vessels typically includes red slip as well as painted horizontal black and
white lines. These relatively small vessels, with a volume of up to two li-
ters, were apparently used to transport specialty products such as spices,
medicines or special drinks. Some storage jars with finger impressions ar-
rived at the site from the southern Shephelah, indicating a certain level of
trade in foodstuffs.
b. Trade connections within a radius of 100–150 km: Basalt vessels found at
the site included simple implements such as grinding stones and grinding
plates, as well as a finely crafted and polished bowl and a basalt altar deco-
rated with a floral pattern. One may also classify in this category the copper
that was used for the manufacture of bronze tools. The Black Juglets from
Transjordan are another indication of networks within this distance (Fig.
20).
c. Cypriot and Egyptian imports: Two pottery juglets that originated in Cyprus
were discovered at the site. They are decorated with painted black bands
and concentric circles on a white background (Fig. 21). The Egyptian im-
ports included scarabs, Egyptian faience amulets and small vessels made of
alabaster. It is clear that all the items in this category are luxury artifacts. As
bronze tools were found at the site, there was a need for the import of tin,
which could have come from Turkey.
6. Radiometric Dating
Two radiometric projects were conducted. The results of the first project were
fully published (Garfinkel et al. 2012). Based on 10 measurements of burnt
Fig. 23: Khirbet Qeiyafa’s first radiometric project: calibrated probability distribution of the
average of 10 determinations.
Fig. 24: Khirbet Qeiyafa’s second radiometric project: calibrated probability distribution of
the average of all 17 determinations from JarC11747 shown with the IntCal13 calibration
curve.
olive pits, it is clear that the Iron Age IIA city of Khirbet Qeiyafa came to an
end sometime between 1020 and 980 BCE (Fig. 23). The practice of averaging
the samples of the first radiometric project in order to assign an absolute date
to Khirbet Qeiyafa has been criticized (Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2010: 85;
Gilboa 2012: 17–18). In the view of these authors, the earliest radiometric date
from Khirbet Qeiyafa represents the date of the site’s construction, while the
30 YOSEF GARFINKEL
latest date is the date of its destruction. Accordingly, the site existed for nearly
130 years from ca. 1050 to 925 BCE.
The expedition has already supplied a detailed reply to these claims (Gar-
finkel and Kang 2011: 178–180; Garfinkel et al. 2012). We see two methodo-
logical problems here. First, the single occupation phase observed in the Iron
Age layer could not have lasted for 130 years. Second, the new analysis is
based on only one radiometric date each for the construction of the city and for
its destruction. This is clearly in contradiction with the principle that radio-
metric dating should not be based on a single sample. Furthermore, since Khir-
bet Qeiyafa was destroyed in a violent event, and since the site was inhabited
in a single phase for a short period of time, it is likely that the great majority of
the samples originate in a date close to the site’s destruction. Therefore, aver-
aging the dates of Khirbet Qeiyafa (which also passes the χ² test) is reasonable.
In any case, we agree that it is better to average samples found in one secure
context. Such a context was unearthed in the 2012 excavation season at Khirbet
Qeiyafa, when almost twenty burned olive pits were found inside a storage jar
in the destruction layer. Now a second radiometric project has been conducted
with 17 measurements (Fig. 24; Garfinkel et al. 2015). In essence, the same da-
ting was obtained in both projects. It is clear that the city came to an end in ca.
970 BCE at the latest. The radiometric datings from Khirbet Qeiyafa challenge
the various versions of the low chronology and support the high chronology.
Another strategy to overcome the early radiometric dating of Khirbet
Qeiyafa was to place the site within the late Iron Age IB rather than the early
Iron Age IIA (Singer-Avitz 2010, 2012; for a Hellenistic dating, see Dagan
2009). However, the pottery assemblage, with its Black Juglets and Cypriot
barrel-shaped juglets, clearly places the Iron Age city in the Iron Age IIA (Gar-
finkel and Kang 2011; Gilboa 2012; Cohen-Weinberger and Panitz-Cohen
2014).
The new type of material culture, imported Cypriot pottery and writing tra-
dition have enabled us to identify an early subphase in the Iron Age IIA of the
region, as summarized in Table 4.
Cultural phase Cultural characteristics Sites

within Iron Age IIA
Late 11th/early 10th Infrequent red slip and irregular hand Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet
century BCE burnish; archaic (Canaanite) script; import ed-Dawwara, Beth-
of Cypriot barrel-shaped juglets; early Shemesh 4, Arad XII,
Ashdod Ware Beersheba VII
Second half of 10th Irregular hand burnish on bowls, some- Beth-Shemesh 3, Lachish
century/early 9th times in geometric patterns; early Phoeni- V, Tel Zayit
century BCE cian-Hebrew script; import of Cypriot
Black-on-Red vessels
Mid- to late 9th Very common red slip and irregular hand Tell eṣ-Ṣafi IV, Lachish
century BCE burnish; late Ashdod Ware IV
Table 4: Division of the Iron Age IIA in Judah and the Shephelah into three chronological
phases and the prominent characteristics of each phase.
Fig. 25: Cultic Room G in Building C3.
Fig. 26: Two standing stones found in Cultic Room G in Building C3.
32 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 27: Twin-cup pottery libation vessel from Cultic Room G in Building C3.
7. Cult
Substantial data on the cult of the inhabitants of Khirbet Qeiyafa were obtained
thanks to the large horizontal exposure that includes large open areas, public
buildings and 11 dwellings containing over 60 rooms (Garfinkel 2009b, 2013;
Garfinkel and Ganor 2009, 2012a; Garfinkel, Ganor and Mumcuoglu 2015).
Standing Stones
The standing stone, the biblical massebah, is one of the more common cultic
objects in the ancient Near East. Typically, it is an elongated stone with a
rounded top that was placed on its narrow end. In most cases a natural stone
was chosen for this purpose and signs of intentional shaping are absent or min-
imal. Seven standing stones were uncovered in the Iron Age II city of Khirbet
Qeiyafa.
Fig. 28: A basalt altar restored from two parts, each found on a different side of Cultic
Room G in Building C3.
Cultic Room G in Building C3

The quantity and quality of architectural features, installations and parapherna-
lia indicate that this room functioned as a cultic space. The room was equipped
with special installations and finds, including a bench, a sink-hole with a con-
nection to a drainage system that was found in the adjacent room to the south,
two standing stones, an offering table, a rounded installation built of stones and
containing a Black Juglet, a rectangular installation in the southeastern corner
and a limestone basin (Figs. 25–26). Room G is notable for the rich destruction
debris accumulated on its floor, which included, as well as a very large amount
of pottery vessels, the following cultic paraphernalia: a basalt altar, a libation
vessel consisting of two conjoined round cups, a seal and an Egyptian scarab
(Figs. 27–28).
34 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 29: Plan of the cultic area in the southeast corner of Building C10.
Cultic Room J in Building D1

Building D1 is the first building south of the gate of Area B. This area was
excavated by Prof. Michael Hasel of Southern Adventist University. Of the 11
different architectural spaces that can be defined in the building, one, located
adjacent to the gate piazza, was identified as a cultic room. This room was
furnished with a bench, a standing stone and an offering table, and contained
among other finds three iron swords. A libation vessel with two rounded cups
of the type found in Cultic Room G of Building C3 was found in an adjacent
room.
Cultic Room G and Related Cultic Contexts in Building C10

Building C10 is the first building to the west of the gate in Area C. It is located
ca. 20 m from the gate, across the inner piazza. The cultic activity here was
concentrated in the southeastern corner of the building, mainly in Room G
(Fig. 29). Additional cultic activity was identified in the areas around this
room. Two exceptional artifacts uncovered in Room G are model shrines, one
made of clay and the other of limestone:
a. A “Model shrine” made of clay. This item is 11 cm wide and 16 cm high

(Figs. 30–31; Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2012a: 150–153; Garfinkel and
Mumcuoglu 2013). While the sides and back are simple, the façade is elab-
orately decorated to resemble a temple entrance, including two lions, two
columns, ribbons tied to the columns and three beams above the entrance,
above which is a rolled curtain. On the beams are circles scored with verti-
cal parallel lines, apparently representing roofing beams laid perpendicular-
ly to the entrance and extending beyond it. Three birds perch on the roof.
Further analysis of the significance and function of this artifact is presented
below.
b. A“Model shrine” made of limestone. This artifact, 21 cm wide, 26 cm long
and 35 cm high, was carved from a single block of soft limestone (Figs. 32–
33; Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2012a: 153–158; Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu
2013; 2015; 2016). Traces of red paint are visible on the exterior. While the
sides and back are simple, the façade is elegantly profiled. In the centre of
the façade is a large rectangular doorframe, 10 cm wide and 20 cm high,
formed by three recessed frames. Between the doorframe and the roof is a
row of protruding rectangular elements, each divided by deep incisions into
three narrow parallel rectangles. Four of these protruding elements are fully
preserved and traces of three others are visible. This is the triglyph, a com-
mon element in classical architecture.
Figurines
Three cultic rooms and over 60 domestic rooms were uncovered in the Iron
Age city; not a single anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figurine was uncovered
in any of them. Only one anthropomorphic head made of clay was unearthed in
Area A (Fig. 34; Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2012a: 164). Two similar heads
have recently been uncovered in a 9th century BCE cultic context at Moza, near
Jerusalem (Kisilewitz 2013).
36 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 30: Clay shrine model from Rooms G and H in Building C10, after restoration.
Fig. 31: Close-up of the upper part of the clay shrine model from Building C10.
Fig. 32: Limestone shrine model from Room G in Building C10, after restoration. Above
the entrance, roofing beams (triglyphs) are visible. The entrance is emphasized by three
recessed doorframes. Remains of red paint are visible over the entire structure.
Fig. 33: Close-up of the triglyphs in the upper part of the limestone shrine model from
Building C10.
38 YOSEF GARFINKEL
Fig. 34: Head of a clay figurine discovered in Area A in fills dated to the Iron Age IIA.
8. Writing
In the season of 2008 a large pottery sherd bearing an inscription was found on
the floor of a building in Area B (Fig. 35). It was deciphered and published in
the following year (Bearman and Christens-Barry 2009a, 2009b; Misgav, Gar-
finkel and Ganor 2009a, 2009b). Many studies have been devoted to it since
then (Aḥituv 2009; Yardeni 2009a, 2009b; Demsky 2009, 2012; Galil 2009;
Shea 2009; Puech 2010; Becking and Sanders 2011; Lipiński 2011; Millard
2011; Rollston 2011; Achenbach 2012; Zilberg 2016). The ostracon was writ-
ten in ink and contained five lines, with a total of some seventy letters. The
letters are written in an archaic style in the Canaanite writing tradition (also
known as “Proto-Canaanite”). This is the longest inscription in this style ever
found, and the longest extant inscription from the 12th to 9th centuries BCE in
the region. It is also one of only a few inscriptions to be uncovered in clear
stratigraphic context and its date, ca. 1000 BCE, is certain.
The second inscription was incised before firing from right to left on the
shoulder of a pottery storage jar (Fig. 36). The letters are large and clear, simi-
lar in size and evenly spaced, written by a skilled hand in Canaanite script. A
short, straight vertical line (a word divider) appears between each pair of
words. The inscription includes a personal name: ’šb‛l bn bd‛ (Eshbaal son of
Beda‛). The name Beda‛ is unique, while Eshbaal is known from the Bible but
has never yet appeared on an ancient inscription (Garfinkel et al. 2015).
The few first letters of the inscription are not fully preserved but, judging
by the upper or lower edges that are still visible, the first word seems to have
had four letters. In the context of an incised inscription on a large container, it
seems that the first word implies that the jar’s contents came from the
field/estate of Eshbaal son of Beda‛.
Fig. 35: Drawing of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon by Ada Yardeni.
Fig. 36: The ‘Eshbaal son of Beda’ inscription was incised on the storage jar before firing.
40 YOSEF GARFINKEL
9. Royal Architecture of the Iron Age Levant

Probably the most important single artifact uncovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa is the
unique limestone model shrine, the carved façade of which includes a combi-
nation of triglyphs and a recessed doorframe. This indicates that some aspects
of the royal architecture typical of the Iron Age Levant, known archaeological-
ly from the 9th–7th centuries BCE, developed 150 years earlier than previously
thought.
Decoration of doorways with double- or triple-recessed doorframes is well
known in the ancient Near East in elite architectural structures – mainly tem-
ples, but also palaces and tombs. This motif appeared as early as the 5th millen-
nium BCE in the temple of Layer XIII at Tepe Gawra (Ubaid Culture), dated to
ca. 4500 BCE. Many later examples are known from the 4th to the 1st millenni-
um BCE (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013; 2015, 2016). This list includes
well-known sites such as Tepe Gawra, Khafajah, Tell Asmar, Tell Brak, Ur,
Mari, Alalakh, Tell Tayinat and Persepolis. In keeping with its significance,
this type of frame was depicted on cylinder seals, plaques, schematic temples
on Kudurru border stones, Hathor-headed capitals and dedicatory stelae and
appears in an image of a god’s throne, as well as on the temple plan on one of
the statues of Gudea, king of Lagash. Windows were also decorated with re-
cessed frames, as indicated by depictions on ivories and stone stelae.
The recessed opening is known in Mesopotamian architecture as early as
4500 BCE and in the Middle Bronze Age appeared in the palaces of Mari and
Alalakh. Nevertheless, this architectural motif was not adopted by the local
Canaanites and does not occur in any temple, palace or artistic expression in
the Middle or Late Bronze Age of the southern Levant. Even in Ugarit, a flour-
ishing Canaanite center in the northern Levant, recessed openings were not
used.
In the late 9th and 8th centuries BCE there are various examples of recessed
openings in the Levant. The well-known “woman in the window” motif has
been found on ivories in royal palaces at Arslan Tash, Nimrud and Khorsabad
in Mesopotamia and at Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel (Thureau-
Dangin et al. 1931: Pls. XXXIV–XXXV; Crowfoot and Crowfoot 1938; Bar-
nett 1975: 98–99, 145–151, Pl. IV). The woman is depicted within a win-
dowframe that is triple-recessed at the top and sides. Recessed frames around
window openings are also known from the Iron Age on a pottery cult stand
from Yavneh (Kletter et al. 2010: Pl. 75,2–3) and from Cyprus (Washbourne
1999).
At Tell Tayinat two entrances were decorated with recessed doorframes
(Haines 1971: Pls. 86, 100, 111). In royal tombs Nos. 5 and 12 at Tamassos,
Cyprus, the stone façade of each burial chamber has recessed doorframes
(Buchholz and Untiedt 1996; Walcher 2005). Tomb 5 includes a representation
of wooden beams protruding below the roof. These resemble the triglyphs on
the Khirbet Qeiyafa stone model, which are located in exactly the same posi-
tion below the roof, albeit represented more schematically.
The earliest dated examples of Iron Age recessed openings were the ivories
from Arslan Tash, a site destroyed in the late 9th century BCE. The other ex-
amples are commonly dated to the 8th century BCE. The Khirbet Qeiyafa lime-
stone artifact is thus the earliest example of this type of royal architecture in
the Levant, its radiometric dating to the late 11th to early 10th century BCE
making it earlier than the other examples by 150–200 years.
Part II: Interpreting Qeiyafa in the Context of Modern Research
In order to understand the current heated debate on the interpretations of Khir-

bet Qeiyafa, one must consider the developments in the field of biblical ar-
chaeology and biblical history in the last 30 years or so. This is part of the
ongoing debate regarding the historical data embedded in the Hebrew Bible.
This debate can now be divided into three phases, and Khirbet Qeiyafa is at the
focus of the second and the third of these.
1. Phase I. The Mythological Paradigm

In the mid-1980s, new approaches developed concerning the historicity of the
biblical narrative. The main argument revolved around the date of the final
writing of the Hebrew Bible. Particularly relevant to our discussion is the nar-
rative of the 10th century BCE, the period known as the United Monarchy. The
so-called “Minimalist” school claims that the Hebrew Bible was written in the
Hellenistic period, nearly 700 years after the time of David and Solomon, and
therefore that the description of that era is a purely literary composition (see,
e.g., Van Seters 1983; Lemche 1988; Davies 1992; Thompson 1999).
In 1993 and 1994, several fragments of an Aramaic stele dated to the 9th
century BCE were found at Tel Dan (Biran and Naveh 1995). This text specifi-
cally mentions a king of Israel and a king of the “House of David”, that is, a
king of the dynasty of David. Reference to the “House of David” has conse-
quently been identified on the Mesha Stele, also dated to the 9th century BCE
(Lemaire 1994; Puech 1994). Thus, there are at least one, and possibly two,
clear references to the dynasty of David in the 9th century BCE, only 100–120
years after his reign. This is clear evidence that David was indeed a historical
figure and the founding father of a dynasty, contrary to the claims of the Mini-
malists.
The Tel Dan stele ended the first phase of the debate on the historicity of
the Hebrew Bible, showing that the mythological paradigm was nothing but a
modern myth.
42 YOSEF GARFINKEL
2. Phase II. The Low Chronology Paradigm

After the collapse of the mythological paradigm, a new strategy was developed
by the Minimalists. This time, the central method was to lower the dating of
the transition between Iron Age I and Iron Age II from ca. 1000 BCE, as was
accepted until then (commonly called the “high chronology”), to ca. 925 BCE
(the “low chronology”) (Finkelstein 1996). A more extreme approach even
lowers the transition to as late as ca. 900 BCE (the “ultra-low chronology”)
(Sharon et al. 2007). The low chronology places urbanization only at the end of
the 10th century BCE, thereby indicating that David and Solomon were not
rulers of a kingdom but local tribal leaders.
In the last decade, hundreds of organic samples from Iron Age sites were
sent for radiometric dating in order to verify or contradict the low chronology
(see, e.g., Boaretto et al. 2005; Levy and Higham 2005; Sharon et al. 2007;
Mazar and Bronk Ramsey 2008). The advocates of the low chronology have
declared without hesitation that the dating results of hundreds of samples sup-
port their chronology (Sharon et al. 2007). Conversely, the same dates were
also presented as supporting the high chronology (Mazar and Bronk Ramsey
2008). It is indeed quite bizarre to see that the same corpus of radiometric dates
can be used to support both chronologies. It seems that the statistical results
can be manipulated to support any position.
This situation has now changed completely, thanks to the recent excava-
tions at Khirbet Qeiyafa. The site cannot be dated any later than 970 BCE. The
fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa indicates that the Iron Age IIA in the southern
Levant began at the very end of the 11th century BCE, thus invalidating the low
chronology paradigm.
3. Phase III: The Ethnic Identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa is located on the border between Judah and the Philistine re-
gion and could, therefore, be associated with either of these. If it was a Judean
site, then fortified cities were built in Judah and consequently David and Solo-
mon were not shepherds living in tents. This situation supports the biblical
tradition. Here begins the third phase in the evolution of the minimalist ap-
proach. The basic minimalist argument is very simple: even if David was a
historical figure (given the Tel Dan stele), and even if the transition from Iron
Age I to Iron Age II began at the end of the 11th century BCE (given the dating
of Khirbet Qeiyafa), there was still no kingdom in Judah in the 10th century
BCE. For this assumption to be true, Khirbet Qeiyafa must be a non-Judean
site. Conversely, the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa as a Judean city would
indicate that David was indeed a substantial king who built fortified cities in
strategic border locations. Thus, the first attempt of the Minimalists is to classi-
fy Khirbet Qeiyafa as a Philistine city, specifically as part of the kingdom of
Gath, identified as Tell eṣ-Ṣafi, 12 km west of Khirbet Qeiyafa (Na’aman
2008a). Later, it was suggested that Khirbet Qeiyafa was a Canaanite site
(Na’aman 2010; Lederman and Bunimovitz 2014), a site of the Kingdom of

Israel (Finkelstein 2013) or a site of a local, unknown entity (Lehmann and
Niemann 2014).
The Khirbet Qeiyafa expedition did not take part in the long-standing Min-
imalist debate and has nothing to gain or lose if the site is identified as Judean
or Philistine. As it seems now, the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa as a Judean
site is supported by various features, of which the main ones are as follows:
a. Urban planning. The dwellings in Khirbet Qeiyafa adjoin and are incorpo-
rated in the city wall, with the casemate constituting the back room of every
house. Such planning is evident at four additional sites: Beth-Shemesh, Tell
en-Naṣbeh, Tell Beit Mirsim and Beersheba. These sites are all dated to the
Iron Age II and located in the Kingdom of Judah (Shiloh 1978; Herzog
1997). On the other hand, small fortified field cities with casemate city
walls are not known in Philistia or from the Canaanite culture, and this plan
was not found in any city in the northern Kingdom of Israel.
b. Cooking habits. No pig or dog bones were found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, while
in Philistine sites these animals were part of the diet. At Khirbet Qeiyafa, a
pottery baking tray was found in each of the buildings; such baking trays
were not used at Philistine sites.
c. Administration. About 700 impressed jar handles were uncovered at Khir-
bet Qeiyafa (Kang and Garfinkel 2015). This is a typically Judean adminis-
trative device. A similar system persisted in Judah for centuries, as attested
by the lmlk impressed storage jars in the 8th century BCE (see, e.g., Gar-
finkel 1985; Ussishkin 2004), jars with rosette-impressed handles in the 7th
century BCE (see, e.g., Cahill 1995), jars with various marking on their
handles from the 6th century BCE (see, e.g., Pritchard 1960; Stern 1971),
jars with yhd impressions in the 5th–4th centuries BCE (Lipschits and
Vanderhooft 2011) and jars with five-pointed star impressions in the Hel-
lenistic period (see, e.g., Ariel and Shoham 2000). Impressed jar handles
are not found in meaningful quantities in the Kingdom of Israel.
d. Writing and language. The language of the ostracon uncovered at Khirbet
Qeiyafa is clearly Semitic, and according to the epigraphist Haggai Misgav
it is Hebrew. The short inscription known from Tell eṣ-Ṣafi contains Indo-
European, not Semitic, names.
Today inscriptions in similar script are also known from Beth-Shemesh
and Jerusalem (McCarter et al. 2011; Mazar et al. 2013). The geography of
these inscriptions is very clear: they are located one day’s walk from Jeru-
salem. In sites of the Kingdom of Israel, such as Tell el-Far‛ah North, Me-
giddo, Beth-Shean and Reḥov, not a single such inscription has been found.
e. Geopolitical location. Khirbet Qeiyafa’s location in the Elah Valley on the
main road from the Philistine centers of Ashdod and Ashkelon to Jerusalem
had no geopolitical importance for the Kingdom of Israel. In order to de-
44 YOSEF GARFINKEL
fend its supposed territory from Philistine attacks, the northern kingdom
would have needed to build fortified cities in the Sorek and Ayalon Valleys.
f. Metal tools. Most of the Iron Age metal artifacts at Khirbet Qeiyafa are
made of iron, as at the Judean sites of Arad XII and Beersheba VII, while
copper and bronze were still used in Canaanite sites (Gottlieb 2010: 100–
104).
g. Cult. Canaanite sites of the Late Bronze Age and the Iron I have yielded a
large number of anthropomorphic figurines, usually made from clay. Quite
a large number of anthropomorphic female figurines were uncovered in
strata dated to the 10th to 8th centuries BCE in sites belonging to the north-
ern Kingdom of Israel. These figurines were made either by free modeling
or by the use of a mold. They are reported from Samaria, Megiddo, Taa-
nach, Jezreel, Beth-Shean and Reḥov. Drummer figurines were found in a
large number of sites in the Kingdom of Israel dated from the 10th to the 8th
centuries BCE. Much information is available on the iconography of the
Philistine culture in the Iron Age and detailed reports have appeared on the
artistic assemblages from Tell Qasile, Ashkelon and Yavneh. A rich assem-
blage of female figurines can be seen, while male figurines are quite rare.
At Khirbet Qeiyafa nothing of the rich anthropomorphic iconography of
Canaanite, Israelite or Philistine sites has been uncovered. The only figurine
found is a large male head, a type now known from two other examples
from Moza. The location of Khirbet Qeiyafa and Moza in Judah, and their
early dating in the Iron Age IIA, fill a major gap in our chronological and
geographical knowledge of the development of early religion in Judah.
Any scientific hypothesis should take into consideration all the available data
that are relevant to that hypothesis. When assessing competing hypotheses, one
must judge whether each of them indeed integrates all the relevant data in the
discussion. The explanation that is able to integrate the largest amount of rele-
vant data, or all of it, should be preferred to hypotheses that explain only some
of the data.
In our case study, the analysis of the data indicates that the material culture
of Khirbet Qeiyafa differed from that of other ethnic groups in the southern
Levant: Canaanites, Philistines and the Kingdom of Israel. On the other hand,
the data fit perfectly with the material culture of Judah, as known in the 9th and
8th centuries BCE. Based on this comparative analysis, it is clear that the only
explanation that takes all the data into consideration is that Khirbet Qeiyafa
was a Judean city.
4. The Historical King David Kingdom of Judah

Up to now I have presented, analyzed and discussed the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa
and its main implications from the archaeological point of view. Now, the im-
plications of the site for the early history of the Kingdom of Judah will be dis-
cussed. So far, nothing in the interpretation of the archaeological data has been
influenced by the biblical text, and thus no circular arguments affect our under-
standing of either the archaeological data or the text.
The relationship between archaeology, history and the biblical text has been
discussed on numerous occasions (see, e.g., Mazar 2007; Garfinkel 2012a).
Obviously, when interpreting data from historical periods, we cannot overlook
the historical dimension. Thus, the main question is not whether, but rather
how, archaeology, history and the biblical text should be integrated. It is clear
that each discipline should first be investigated separately through the sources
and data, and that only at a second stage should they be integrated into one
coherent picture. The main hazard in our specific case study, and in the field of
biblical archaeology in general, is circular reasoning, whereby the first disci-
pline is used to explain the second, after which the second discipline is used to
support the first.
A kingdom is not an abstract entity but requires the control of a central au-
thority over territory, population and resources. All of these are reflected in the
finds from Khirbet Qeiyafa (Garfinkel 2011):
a. Control over territory. The main threat to the new kingdom was the nearby
developing Philistine city state of Gath (Tell eṣ-Ṣafi). In order to protect the
border a Judean stronghold was built on the border and on the main road
leading from the coastal plain into the hill country. In this way the city at
Khirbet Qeiyafa protected both the border and the road.
The location of Khirbet Qeiyafa on the border, the very strong fortifica-
tions, the large amount of weapons and the fact that the site was destroyed
shortly after it was built all point to a conflict area and an unstable political
situation. The biblical traditions do indeed locate a large number of military
clashes in this setting.
b. Control over population (administration). The location of the site one day’s
walk from both Jerusalem and Hebron enabled efficient control of the
population. The finds at Khirbet Qeiyafa attest to the existence of a central
royal administration, in contrast to sites of the Iron Age I, which were small
unfortified villages with no evidence for central administration. Administra-
tion in the ancient world was expressed mainly in economic obligations im-
posed on the population in two main forms: conscription of manpower for
public works and collection of a certain percentage of the agricultural pro-
duction as taxes. These two aspects find clear expression at Khirbet
Qeiyafa. The conscription of manpower for public works is reflected in the
massive construction at Khirbet Qeiyafa. The city’s fortifications, including
two gates and a casemate wall, attest to extensive construction, exceeding
by far the modest building activity of Iron Age I villages and the capabili-
ties of the local population, which I estimate to have been about one hun-
dred families. Study of the distribution of stones in different parts of the site
has shown that particularly large stones weighing 2–8 tons were found only
46 YOSEF GARFINKEL
in the gates and the outer wall, while the rest of the stones in the wall and
casemates were of medium size. Quarrying, transporting and building with
the large stones would have required specialist artisans with engineering
knowledge, who built according to an architect’s plan that was prepared in
advance. Strong men without specific skills would have sufficed for trans-
porting and building with medium-sized stones, the main element in the
city’s fortifications. It seems that men were recruited to Khirbet Qeiyafa
from all around the kingdom to work on construction of the city for several
weeks, before being replaced by a new group.
c. Control over resources. This was achieved by the second form of economic
obligation: collection of a certain percentage of the agricultural production
as taxes. Hundreds of storage jars with finger impressions on their handles
were found at the site. Examination of the clay from which the storage jars
were made has shown that they were centrally produced. The vessels were
apparently delivered empty to the rural population and returned by them
filled with agricultural produce. This system of taxation is convenient for
the central administration, since it solves the problems of collection, trans-
portation and storage. The marking of jars permitted control of the distribu-
tion and contents and prevented corruption.
The control over resources is clearly reflected by the pillar building un-
covered in Area F. This was a central storage building for goods collected
in the area around Khirbet Qeiyafa and later redistributed according to the
needs of the central authority.
The question of when Judah became a full-scale kingdom has attracted
much attention. In the early days of research, and up to today, the existence
of a “United Monarchy” was accepted with little hesitation by various
scholars (see, e.g., Yadin 1958; Malamat 1979; Halpern 1996; Stager
2003). In the 1980s and 1990s it was proposed that Judah became a king-
dom only a few years before Sennacherib’s campaign in 701 BCE (see, e.g.,
Jamieson-Drake 1991; Finkelstein 1999; Lehmann 2003). Today it is a
commonly held opinion that Judah was able to spread into the Shephelah
and beyond only after the destruction of the Philistine city of Gath, after ca.
830 BCE (see, e.g., Lehmann and Niemann 2014).
It is interesting to see that all these suggestions have one aspect in com-
mon: that Judah became a full-scale kingdom suddenly, whether in the 10th,
the 9th or the 8th century BCE. The development of a kingdom, however, is
a slow process that involves large-scale demographic and economic devel-
opments and complex social organization. These changes require time, and
thus another model is needed, a model of slow development, with several
stages from a small core to a full-scale kingdom (Garfinkel 2012b). This
model is presented here in Fig. 37.
Fig. 37: The development of the settlement pattern and the main centers in the Kingdom of
Judah, from its foundation until its final destruction (based on Garfinkel 2012b).
Part III: Qeiyafa and the Biblical Tradition
The debate about the relationship between archaeology, ancient Near Eastern
studies and the Bible, which seems so modern today, actually began over a
century ago. In 1902 the famous “Babel und Bibel” lecture delivered by the
German Semitic philologist Friedrich Delitzsch generated much public interest
(Arnold and Weisberg 2002). From the very beginning of systematic archaeo-
logical and historical research on the ancient Near East there was a complex
love-hate relationship between archaeology and the Bible.
The extensive attack on the connection between the biblical tradition and
archaeology is indeed justified when circular reasoning is used. In such cases
the Bible is used to interpret the archaeological data and then the archaeologi-
cal data confirm the biblical tradition. But today it is very common to throw
out the baby with the bathwater. This is part of much larger wider intellectual
developments formulated in the West during the last decades of the 20th centu-
ry. Today we are in a postmodern and deconstructive era. Everything is rela-
tive, there is no right or wrong and contradictory approaches are all legitimate.
Good scholarship, however, should be aware of the current trends and not get
carried away by popular, but unsound, approaches.
48 YOSEF GARFINKEL
In the following, the central question regarding Khirbet Qeiyafa is its rela-
tionship with the biblical sources, which describe state-formation processes in
Judah and King David’s activities and intensive military clashes against the
Philistine city of Gath in the Elah Valley. In our opinion, these biblical tradi-
tions are contemporaneous with the settlement of the fortified city at Khirbet
Qeiyafa. Thus, our excavations have direct implications for these complex
matters.
1. The Ancient Name

The question of the ancient name of Khirbet Qeiyafa has attracted much atten-
tion (Adams 2009). Various toponyms have been suggested over the years:
‛Adataim (Dagan 1996: 139), Gob (Na’aman 2008a), Shaaraim (Garfinkel and
Ganor 2008c), Neṭa‛im (Galil 2009: 223) and Ma‛gal (Levin 2012). At present,
it seems that the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa with Shaaraim is the best
available possibility. The names Gob, Neṭa‛im and Ma‛gal are not associated
with any biblical list of settlements. Indeed, in his comprehensive study of the
historical geography of the Bible, Aharoni (1987: 331–334) did not include any
of them among the biblical cities.
The name Shaaraim, Hebrew sha‛arayim, “two gates” appears three times
in the biblical tradition (Joshua 15:36; 1 Samuel 17:52; 1 Chronicles 4:31).
Based on the chronology, the geography and the meaning of the name, the
similarities between Khirbet Qeiyafa and biblical Shaaraim are very clear (Ta-
ble 5). In ancient toponyms a city with only one gate may be called sha‛arayim
(Na’aman 2008b); this name is even more suitable for a city with two gates.
Location Chronology Meaning of name

Biblical Shaaraim Vicinity of the Elah Valley Time of David Two gates
Khirbet Qeiyafa Adjoining the Elah Valley ca. 1020–980 BCE Two gates at the site
Table 5: Comparison of the biblical data on the city of Shaaraim with the archaeological
findings.
2. The Elah Valley as a border area between Judah and Philistine Gath
Khirbet Qeiyafa had a very prominent location at the entrance to the Kingdom
of Judah. In this location it controlled the road leading to Jerusalem. The new
city was a statement of a new regime and a new power in the area. It is now
clear why the biblical tradition placed the David-Goliath story in this location
and time. By the end of the 9th century BCE Gath had been destroyed and the
Valley of Elah had lost its geopolitical importance.
3. The Model Shrine and Solomon’s Palace and Temple

The unique stone model shrine from Khirbet Qeiyafa contributes new data on
royal architecture in Judah in the first half of the 10th century BCE. The tri-
glyph motifs and recessed doorframe on its façade show that aspects typical of
royal architecture in the Iron Age Levant, previously known archaeologically
from the 9th–7th centuries BCE, developed 150 years earlier than previously
thought. In recent studies of this artifact it was shown that triglyphs and a re-
cessed doorframe also appear in the biblical description of King Solomon’s
palace and temple in Jerusalem (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013, 2015).
The biblical account attributes large-scale public construction, including
royal palaces and a temple in Jerusalem, to King Solomon. The historicity of
these traditions has been extensively debated by modern scholars (see, e.g.,
Miller 1997; Van Seters 1997; Hurowitz 2010: 281–282; Edelman 2012; Galil
2012). The most valuable tool of the historian in assessing historical sources is
the juxtaposition of different testimonies to the same event. Luckily, we have
such data here. On the one hand, the Khirbet Qeiyafa artifact was buried in the
early 10th century BCE and remained so until today. On the other hand, the
biblical traditions describe the same type of royal architecture in the palace and
temple, which are attributed to the mid-10th century BCE. There is no circular
reasoning here; the triglyphs and recessed doorframe were identified on the
model shrine thanks to our knowledge of such architectural elements in various
other buildings, while the artifact was dated by radiometric means.
The model shrine uncovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa shows that an elaborate
Iron Age architectural style had already developed by the 10th century BCE.
Such construction is typical of royal enterprise, suggesting that state formation,
the establishment of a social elite and urbanism existed in the region in the
days of David and Solomon.
We do not know when the biblical texts describing the period of David and
Solomon were composed. The stone model shrine from Khirbet Qeiyafa attests
that the text describes architectural elements that were actually known in that
region and during that period, thus supporting the historicity of this particular
biblical tradition. This suggests that the ruling elite in Judah displayed its pow-
er through the use of prestige artifacts and the construction of elaborate archi-
tecture as early as the 10th century BCE.
Concluding Remarks
The location of Khirbet Qeiyafa and the data uncovered clearly demonstrate
that it was a Judean city rather than a Canaanite or Philistine one. Nor did it
belong to the northern Kingdom of Israel. The new data and the radiometric
dating support the biblical narrative about state formation in Judah. The ar-
chaeological data and the biblical text both indicate that a new social organiza-
tion developed in Judah in the late 11th century BCE. There is no circular rea-
50 YOSEF GARFINKEL
soning here, as the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is dated radiometrically and its eth-
nic identification is based on the archaeological data. On the other hand, in the
biblical tradition this period is the era of King David. This narrative, like any
historical narrative, suffers from various shortcomings but can no longer be
rejected out of hand. In the late 11th century BCE a small kingdom, the King-
dom of Judah, began to develop in the hills of Jerusalem and Hebron. Its
founding father was David. The main scientific challenge is not to overlook
this political entity, but to investigate it, in order to achieve better understand-
ing of its formation and development over time.
Acknowledgments
The Khirbet Qeiyafa Archaeological Project is directed by Yosef Garfinkel and

Saar Ganor on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Other participat-
ing institutions include Southern Adventist University, Oakland University and
Virginia Commonwealth University. The project was sponsored chiefly by J.
B. Silver and the Nathan and Lily Silver Foundation. The project received
additional support over the years from a large number of friends or institutions:
the National Geographic Society (2009), the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan
Foundation, Benjamin Eisin, Jeffery and Michel Barak, Prof. Jonathan
Waybright, Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman, Samuel D. Turner, Esquire,
Varda Zinger, the Berman Center for Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Uni-
versity of Jerusalem, Sheila T. Bishop and the Foundation for Biblical Archae-
ology, and the Israel Exploration Society.
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Khirbet Qeiyafa in its Regional Context:
A View From Philistine Gath
Aren M. MAEIR
In light of the excavations and publications of the finds from the two neighbor-
ing sites of Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath and Khirbet Qeiyafa, I present an assessment of
the suggested interpretations of the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa in its broader re-
gional context, and discuss the relationship between the two sites during the
early Iron Age.
Introduction
The excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, directed by Yossi Garfinkel and his col-
leagues, with the fascinating finds and their very commendable prompt and
comprehensive publication (e.g. Garfinkel and Ganor 2009; Garfinkel et al.
2014), have added much to what we know about the early Iron Age in the
Southern Levant. Already from the initial reports on the finds from the site and
their interpretation, Khirbet Qeiyafa has been at the center of some of the most
vigorous and lively debates among scholars of the Iron Age Levant. Just about
every possible opinion on this has been brought forward – ranging from full
acceptance of the excavators’ suggestions, through partial acceptance of the
suggested ramifications, and to complete denial of any connection between the
finds and the early Judahite Kingdom. Without a doubt, if one just would read
the studies relating to Khirbet Qeiyafa and its finds – many hours of library
work would be needed! In my opinion, whatever one’s stance regarding the
interpretation of the site – one has to profusely thank Yossi Garfinkel for serv-
ing as the “engine” behind all this research activity!1
In this paper, I would like to discuss the significance and regional context
of the finds from Khirbet Qeiyafa from the perspective of the excavations at
nearby Philistine Gath (Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath), which I believe was the major polity
in the southern Land of Israel at the time. I will utilize this as an opportunity to
suggest an interpretation of the broader context of the finds at Khirbet Qeiyafa,
and in particularly, their significance for reconstructing the cultural and politi-
cal history of the Southern Levant during the late Iron Age I and early Iron Age
II.
1
As the director of the Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath Archaeological Project, and as one of the close
archaeological “neighbors” to the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa (and of Yossi Gar-
finkel’s new excavations at Lachish as well), I am particularly happy that I have been
given the opportunity to discuss the significance of the finds from Khirbet Qeiyafa in re-
lation to the finds at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath. This paper is updated as of August, 2015.
62 AREN M. MAEIR
Judahite – Israelite – Canaanite: The Debate on the Identity of the

Population of Khirbet Qeiyafa
The unique nature of the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is apparent. The clear evi-
dence of fortifications at the site (including a well-planned casemate wall, and
according to the excavators, two classical Iron Age chambered gates), epi-
graphic and cultic finds, are on their own quite unique, but if one adds to this
the short-lived nature of the main architectural features and their dating (late
11th/early 10th centuries BCE), the cultural affiliation as suggested by the exca-
vators (Judahite), and their belief that the finds of the site can be associated
with the incipient Kingdom of Judah (in the time of David), both the finds, and
their interpretation by the excavators, are quite extraordinary. Needless to say,
the excavators’ claims have not been accepted by all.
To start with, I must state that I accept the excavators’ suggestion that the
site is Judahite – if only for the lack of a better-fitting solution. The material
culture does show clear connections with early Iron Age Jerusalem – even if
little is known about Jerusalem at this stage (see, e.g. Cahill 2003; Cahill West
2008). The well-known inscription (Misgav et al. 2009), while one cannot say
with total confidence that it can only be Judahite (e.g. Rollston 2011) – never-
theless may very likely be so. The various elements which the excavators con-
nect to Judahite material traditions (pottery, architecture, cult, etc. – e.g. Gar-
finkel et al. 2014) – do in fact fit in nicely with what we know of late Iron I
and early Iron IIA Judah.
Suggestions of an early Israelite connection (e.g. Kingdom of Saul – sug-
gested by Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012) in my opinion are hard to accept.
This is so both for the general lack of clear evidence of the Kingdom of Saul,
which is a separate issue beyond the scope of the present study, but also the
lack of any specific material finds at Khirbet Qeiyafa that enable this interpre-
tation. The lack of pig bones at Khirbet Qeiyafa, which the excavators have
suggested can help in determining the Judahite identity of the site (e.g. Gar-
finkel et al. 2014; or to the Canaanite – see below), may perhaps be relevant
for raising additional problems with the suggested connection with the early
Israelite Kingdom. As Sapir-Hen et al. (2013) have demonstrated, from the
Iron IIA onwards, in Israelite sites there is a rise in pig consumption, while in
Judahite sites, for the most part, abstention from pork continues. This being the
case, if in fact Khirbet Qeiyafa should be dated to the transition between the
Iron I to the Iron IIA, then perhaps the lack of pig bones might indicate that a
southern, Judahite orientation is more likely.
Suggestions to see Khirbet Qeiyafa as a Canaanite site – and connected to a
supposed Canaanite “enclave” in the Shephelah, between the Philistines and
the Israelites (which has become a very popular explanation in recent years …)
– is a possibility, but I don’t see definitive evidence of this. Recently, it has
been repeatedly suggested that not only can the Philistine and Israelite/Judahite
ethnicities be clearly identified archaeologically, an additional, “Canaanite”
KHIRBET QEIYAFA IN ITS REGIONAL CONTEXT: A VIEW FROM PHILISTINE GATH 63
group can be seen in the archaeological record, in the Shephelah buffer zone
between the Philistines and Israelites. This has been suggested for the early
Iron Age phases at sites such as Beth-Shemesh, Tel Eton and Khirbet Qeiyafa.
Perhaps the most sophisticated of these interpretations has been developed
by Bunimovitz and Lederman (2011; Lederman and Bunimovitz 2014), who
focus on practices of resistance of the local population in Tel Beth-Shemesh.
Accordingly, at the time of the arrival of migrant communities, people at Tel
Beth-Shemesh stopped consuming pork and also did not acquire pottery, which
they associated with the newcomers. This brings us very close to the emic
identification of otherness without falling into the necessity to equate the “oth-
ers” with a homogenous “ethnic group“. What might have been perceived as a
homogenous other by the inhabitants of Tel Beth-Shemesh could have been in
fact a very heterogeneous group of migrants and parts of the material culture
and social practices of these newcomers were then perceived as being charac-
teristic for all of them by the inhabitants of Tel Beth-Shemesh. This raises the
question of who identifies whom as a coherent social group - and that there is
even no single “emic” perspective - but competing identifications of the other
(and, finally, also oneself) as a group with a joint identity. It should be noted
though that the most recent finds at Tel Beth-Shemesh (summer 2015) so far
reported only informally, may question this “tight” interpretation, as it appears
that in the excavation of early Iron Age contexts a significant amount of Philis-
tine pottery was found, perhaps supporting the possibility that there was a Phi-
listine presence on site.
As opposed to what appears to a be a tight, site-specific interpretation
which may “hold water”, attempts to formulate an overall definition of ethnic
groups living in very clearly defined and bordered regions appear to be hard to
justify (e.g. Faust and Katz 2011; Faust 2013). It should be stressed that the
very definition of “who is” and “who is not” a Philistine or an Israelite/Judahite
is hardly agreed upon. And thus, suggesting to explicitly define the supposedly
static ethnic identity of a group living in the contact zone between these groups
is fraught with difficulty. The very fact that “Canaanite” (local Levantine)
features are seen in Iron Age Philistia and at the same time, a major part of the
so-called “early Israelite” culture can be traced to local Levantine (“Canaan-
ite”) origins, makes it difficult to distinguish between a “real” Canaanite –
supposedly living in this buffer zone, and a “transformed” Canaanite – who
lives in the Philistine and/or Israelite/Judahite regions.
In addition, the suggestion that a Canaanite “entity” existed betwixt the
Philistines and the Israelites, may very well be influenced by a modern reading
of the biblical text – in particular the mention of Canaanites in this region in
the “Tamar and Judah narrative” in Genesis 38 – as there is no clear corrobora-
tion of this in contemporaneous Iron Age texts. As very few biblical scholars
would date this text to the early Iron Age (e.g. Leuchter 2013), one wonders
whether this text in fact reflects a historical reality at all. Can we speak of a
64 AREN M. MAEIR
Canaanite group identity in this region during the early Iron Age, and even if
so – how can this be identified archaeologically?
Perhaps then, one should prefer to look at the transition between the Philis-
tia-Shephelah-Central Hills, as a region in which boundaries did exist, but they
were “fuzzy” and constantly changing. While there is no question that during
the early Iron Age there were peoples that identified themselves separately –
perhaps as “Philistines” (and they resided mainly in Philistia) and as Israel-
ites/Judahites (and they resided mainly in the Central Hills) – and for the ar-
guments sake – perhaps even “Canaanites” (residing in the Shephelah), it
would be very hard to define, at any given time, based on the available archae-
ological data, the cultural/ethnic affiliation, and more than that – the exclusive
group identity – of the inhabitants of a given site in the border zones. Thus,
simplistic interpretations of the archaeological correlates for identifying “eth-
nic” Philistines as opposed to other groups in the Iron Age Levant warrant
caution. Similarly, attempts to identify a unified “Philistine identity” may be
problematic as well. Not only are the Philistines of a very mixed origin (vari-
ous foreign components “mixed” in with local ones), as noted above, there are
discreet regional differences between the material culture at various Philistine
sites. Add to this the fact that the Philistines themselves, as far as we know
from the available epigraphic materials from Philistia, defined themselves
based on their cities or origins – and not necessarily as “Philistines” in general.
Yehuda Dagan, who conducted extensive surveys (and some excavations)
in this region (e.g., Dagan 2010; 2011), has questioned the very dating of the
remains from the site. Dagan’s views (2009) are simply unacceptable, since
telltale remains that are picked up in survey, even if of various periods, cannot
override the results of extensive excavations. Thus, even if Dagan found sherds
from many periods, the excavations have clearly and definitively shown that
the primary architectural features at the site date to a relatively short time
frame.
Lily Singer-Avitz (e.g. 2010; 2012) and Israel Finkelstein and Eli Piasetzky
(e.g. 2010; see as well Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012) have challenged the
dating proposed by Garfinkel et al. While the latter would date the site to ca.
1025–975 BCE, and see it as representing an early Iron Age IIA pottery hori-
zon, Singer-Avitz believes that the pottery is more likely to be late Iron Age I,
while Finkelstein and Piasetzky believe that the radiocarbon dates that have
been published so far from the excavation do not enable such a close dating;
they believe that as of yet, the dates can be set only as somewhere between ca.
1050 BCE and no later than 915 BCE – similar, in their opinion, to the dating
of various late Iron Age I sites in the Levant. While clearly these views have
relevance for understanding the exact role of this site, I believe that by and
large, they do not change much in the importance, and character, of the site.
Even if one argues that the material culture from the site should be classified as
late Iron Age I and not early Iron Age IIA, the character of the site (fortified
and of relatively short duration) and its cultural affiliation (not Philis-
tine/coastal), argue quite clearly that the founding and construction of this site
should be related to a polity that existed to the east of Philistia. Whether this is
a polity that derives from the Central Hills (i.e., the early Judahite and/or Isra-
elite kingdoms) or if from an as-yet unidentified polity that existed in the Jude-
an Shephelah at the time (e.g. Lederman and Bunimovitz 2014), the evidence
at present is not sufficiently definitive; I, personally, as mentioned above, pre-
fer in this case, an “Occam’s Razor” approach – and opt for the possibility that
it is related to the incipient polities in the Central Hills – what later will be
known as the Israelite, and then Judahite kingdom.
Nadav Na’aman (2008a; 2008b)2 originally questioned the cultural affilia-
tion of the site, believing that it is not to be seen as Israelite, but rather as Phil-
istine, and in fact, sees it as a satellite site of the Philistine kingdom of Gath
(do note that he has more recently opted for a Canaanite identity for the site).
This though can hardly be accepted. The stark differences between the pottery
from Khirbet Qeiyafa and that of both late Iron Age I and early Iron Age IIA
Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath can hardly justify a claim that these two sites are closely
affiliated. Initial evidence of the palaeodiet, even if one should relate to this
issue with caution (e.g., Sapir-Hen et al. 2013; Maeir and Horwitz 2015), as
well as other aspects, only strengthens this claim. If at all, the rather strong
similarity to the partially published late Iron Age I/early Iron Age IIA pottery
from Jerusalem, strengthens a claims for an inland affiliation of this site.
It should be stressed that despite the clear differences between the finds at
Khirbet Qeiyafa and Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath, it would be rash to claim that one can
define a clear border between these two sites, with Khirbet Qeiyafa represent-
ing the westernmost position of an inland polity and culture. Dagan (2010:
195–201) recently published a late Iron Age I/early Iron Age IIA tomb that was
discovered ca. 4 km to the northeast of Khirbet Qeiyafa, further within the hilly
region of the eastern “High Shephelah.” The tomb appears to have quite a few
“Philistine” type vessels, and in fact it is quite similar to the pottery found at
Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath, seemingly somewhat different from the assemblage at Khir-
bet Qeiyafa. This being the case, it would appear that the users of the tomb
may have been affiliated with the Philistine culture, and perhaps with the Phil-
istine polity of Gath to the west, rather than to the occupants of Khirbet
Qeiyafa – despite the fact that the tomb is located further inland. This can per-
haps be seen as indicating that the cultural borders in this region were quite
fluid – and perhaps, one should not talk of distinct cultural and/or political
boundaries during this period between the coastal plain and Philistia and the
inland (Judahite/Israelite?) regions.
This latter suggestion should not come as a surprise, both in light of what is
known of the shifting character of border zones between cultural units, and, at
the same time, the biblical description of the fluidity of the relationship be-
2
Note that he later changed his mind on this issue, and now believes the site is Canaanite
in nature (e.g. Na’aman 2010).
66 AREN M. MAEIR
tween, and the definition of, the peoples living with the Philistine and the Isra-
elite/Judahite spheres of influence (for an extended discussion of this issue, see
Maeir and Hitchcock in press).
The Relationship between Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath and Khirbet Qeiyafa
But what can the finds at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath tell us about the relationship be-
tween Gath and Khirbet Qeiyafa? In addition to the fact that the material cul-
tures at these two sites are quite different, I believe that the status of Gath
throughout the Iron I and Iron IIA can help us understand the role, function and
status of Khirbet Qeiyafa during the brief time of its existence during the Iron
Age. As we know now (that is including the 2014 season of excavations), Gath
was a large Philistine site from the very beginning of the Iron Age (ca. early
12th century BCE) up until the late 9th century BCE – when Hazael destroyed
the site (e.g. Maeir 2012; 2013; 2016). In fact, during the late Iron I and early
Iron IIA, it appears that Gath was of a particularly large size, ca. 45 to 50 hec-
tares – including an expansive lower city. In addition, throughout the Iron I and
early Iron IIA (until the Hazael destruction), the site continued to flourish
without any evidence of destructions and or change in cultural and/or political
orientations. Thus, it can be safe to assume that the city of Gath served as the
primary polity in this region, particularly during the late Iron I and early Iron
IIA (e.g. late 11th through late 9th century BCE).
This being the case, the existence of this polity would limit the possibilities
of a westward expansion of the incipient Judahite polity on the one hand – and
of a southern expansion of a northern early Israelite polity (in light of Finkel-
stein and Fantalkin’s [2012] suggestion mentioned above). Attempts to “ex-
plain away” the importance of Gath at this stage and see it as an anomaly –
which existed in a “bubble” while the early Judahite Kingdom expanded into
the Shephelah unhindered (as Faust 2014 and Ussishkin 2014 seem to be-
lieve) – is rather hard to accept. It is now clear that the site was fortified at this
stage, as seen both on the upper tell and in the lower city,3 to which can be
added its large size (ca. 50 hectares), lack of destructions, and evidence of
inter- and intra-regional connections, does not enable one to suggest that this
was a site which had not political “clout” – and the city of Gath was not the
center of the largest kingdom in the region with a strong influence on neighbor-
ing polities and cultures – and their ability to expand into the regions under the
control of the Kingdom of Gath.
In this light, as argued in the past (e.g. Maeir 2012), I believe that the site of
Khirbet Qeiyafa was a short lived attempt of the Judahite polity to extend its
influence to the west, but that this attempt was ephemeral and was quickly
3
In particular, the results of the 2015 season have demonstrated the existence of impres-
sive fortifications in the upper and lower city during the Iron Age IIA. Thus, Ussishkin’s
(2014) claim to the contrary can be disregarded.
crushed by the Kingdom of Gath. This would explain why Khirbet Qeiyafa is
destroyed after a short period – and does not serve as a “base” for the further
expansion of the Judahite influence in this area. When Judah does expand into
the Shephelah, whether before or after the conquest of Gath by Hazael,4 the
focus of this expansion is at other sites, such as Lachish. In any case, even if
Judah did expand in the Shephelah prior to the late 9th century BCE, this would
have only been towards the southwestern Shephelah (the regions south of
Lachish).
Final remarks
I would also like to address several other points that Yossi Garfinkel has sug-
gested regarding Khirbet Qeiyafa:
1. The suggestion to identify the site as Shaaraim (Hebrew sha‛arayim) –

although technically a possibility – cannot be accepted per se. The fact that
the site has two gates does not prove this point – both due to the fact that
the “ayim” ending does not necessarily indicate ‘double’ (as already point-
ed out by others), as well as the fact that the original claim that only this
site has two gates has now been disproven by Garfinkel himself at Lachish!
2. Garfinkel’s suggestion (e.g. Garfinkel et al. 2012) to see the early Judahite
kingdom as being based at three sites during the time of David – Jerusalem,
Qeiyafa and Hebron – is hard to accept. First of all, it is hard to see why a
site which is on the very western periphery of the Judahite polity would be
chosen as a central site. In addition, as discussed above, it is destroyed after
a very short period. And most importantly, from all the excavations that
have been conducted in ancient Hebron (Tell Rumeideh; e.g., Eisenberg
and Nagorski 2002; Chadwick 2005), there is so far no evidence of a sub-
stantial late Iron I/early Iron IIA presence on this site – let alone an indica-
tion that it was one of the major sites of the Judahite polity! So besides Je-
rusalem – and even there the remains at this stage are not that impressive
(see Cahill 2003) – there is virtually no evidence for this three-pronged ur-
ban settlement pattern that has been suggested.
3. Likewise, I don’t agree with Yossi Garfinkel’s suggestions regarding the
understanding of the biblical text – and the methodologies currently em-
ployed to analyze it – in light of the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa. Due to
the fact that he believes that evidence for the Kingdom of David has been
found at the site, he questions much of the currently accepted methods and
interpretations of modern biblical research. Without going into too much
detail, this is very problematic. On the one hand, as noted above, the ar-
4
See e.g., Faust 2014 who argues for an earlier date, as opposed, e.g., to Koch 2012;
Sergi 2013; Lehmann and Niemann 2014, who argue for a later date of the Judahite in-
cursion into the Shephelah.
68 AREN M. MAEIR
chaeological interpretation of the site in a simplistic and straightforward

manner in relationship to the biblical text is hard to accept. And no less im-
portant – the tools and methods of modern biblical scholarship are not
something that can be brushed aside based on this or that find - from this or
that site! The complex nature of the biblical texts – and for sure those deal-
ing with the “Davidic cycle” – cannot be collapsed into a monolithic, “Sun-
day School” understanding of early biblical history! This would seem to be
completely obvious – and one can only state quite simply that the very evi-
dence from Khirbet Qeiyafa does not support this view! For if we accept a
monolithic understanding of the David story – one would assume that the
Israelites defeated the Philistines after the David and Goliath confrontation
– and the Philistines barely escaped from the field! If this was in fact what
happened in reality, one would expect that Khirbet Qeiyafa, as one of the
three major sites of the Davidic Kingdom would continue to exist through-
out David’s rule and his control over Philistia would be manifested at sites
in Philistia (as the biblical text would lead us to believe). But in fact, the
very finds from Khirbet Qeiyafa indicate that the picture is very different.
Even if one accepts this site as being Judahite (which I believe is the case),
the story of the site’s existence and role hardly fits in with a “simplistic”
reading of the biblical text.
To summarize, while I am in awe at the finds that Yossi Garfinkel and his col-
leagues have discovered at the site, am very impressed with the swift and com-
prehensive publications, and agree in part with some of the suggested interpre-
tations by Garfinkel and his team (in particular that the site is most likely Ju-
dahite), other aspects of the interpretive framework which they have suggested
– and in particular what it can tell us about the early Judahite Kingdom and the
supposed veracity of the biblical texts about this stage in Judahite history – I
find hard to accept.
References
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70 AREN M. MAEIR
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Khirbet Qeiyafa – Some Thoughts of a Biblical
Scholar. Response to Yosef Garfinkel and Aren Maeir
Thomas RÖMER
The article challenges the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa with Shaaraim,

mentioned only three times (or even less) in the Hebrew Bible. It also ques-
tions Garfinkel’s idea that the place should be related directly to King David.
The absence of iconic material and pig bones cannot be used to claim a Ju-
dahite character of the site.
Introduction: Biblical Scholarship and Archaeology
Everybody will agree that the results of the excavation of Khirbet Qeiyafa have
produced enormously interesting and intriguing discoveries and these finds
certainly belong to the most important contributions to the archeology of Iron
Age Israel/Palestine in recent years. During the last three years, I had the
chance to visit the site three times and it is indeed, also for the non-
archaeologist, a very impressive site.
Reading and listening to both presentations and taking into account also the
numerous publications related to Khirbet Qeiyafa (Garfinkel 2009 and 2015,
Na’aman 2010, Pioske 2015), the site as well as the finds, provide some com-
fort for the biblical scholar because the opinions and interpretations are as var-
ious as the results of exegetical research.
Some of my colleagues still are of the opinion that archeology can give a
definite answer to unresolved questions of biblical scholarship, but to under-
stand and to interpret finds of an excavation also necessitates a theoretical
framework that should be open to revision as should be theories of biblical
scholarship. This does, however, not mean that I am advocating a postmodern
position according to which “anything goes”.
In his article Yosef Garfinkel speaks of a “complex love-hate relationship
between archaeology and the Bible” (Garfinkel, supra page 47). It is true that
the so-called “Biblical Archaeology” was often used in order to prove the “ve-
racity” of the biblical texts as well as their historicity, especially in conserva-
tive Christian and Jewish milieux (see for instance Keller 20091). I do not want
to discuss here the role of “Biblical Archeology” in the context of the founda-
tion of the state of Israel and the role of archeology in providing the feeling of
a historical continuity between the young state and the time of the Patriarchs or
1
This book – published for the first time in 1955 – was edited anew several times and
translated into twenty languages.
74 THOMAS RÖMER
the time of David (see on this Smyth-Florentin 1993). It is however obvious

that the claim of archeologists to have discovered remains of the Davidic pal-
ace in Jerusalem or a Davidic administrative center in Khirbet Qeiyafa always
makes it to the headlines of newspapers and into other media.
The relationship between archeology and Biblical Studies was indeed never
an easy one. After having been considered by biblical scholars as a “Hilfswis-
senschaft”, archeologists working in the “the Holy Land” wanted to emanci-
pate and did not much care about the results of critical biblical research. Some-
times archeologists also had the idea that archeology could definitely settle
issues of dating and understanding biblical texts, so that the question arose
whether archeology could really be the “High Court” of biblical and historical
scholarship (Na’aman 2011). In my view, both disciplines should work auton-
omously but also in interaction or to put it with Garfinkel, “archeology, history
and the biblical text should be integrated” (Garfinkel, supra page 45), and that
we should avoid circular reasoning. With my colleague Israel Finkelstein,
whom I do not consider a “minimalist” (see Garfinkel, supra page 42), I have
recently tried to investigate from an archaeological and Biblical Studies view-
point the formation and possible dating of the Abraham- and Jacob narratives,
not in order to prove or to deny the historicity of the Patriarchs, but to see when
certain locations make sense and when not or less, and then to combine these
results with recent theories about the formation of Genesis 12–36 (Finkelstein
and Römer 2014a and 2014b). I found this collaboration stimulating and help-
ful and would like to see a similar approach also to the many “riddles” of Khir-
bet Qeiyafa.
Let me first comment on some more general issues before turning to ques-
tions related to biblical scholarship.
The Question of Date and Ethnicity
According to Garfinkel, “it is clear that the city came to an end before 970
BCE” (Garfinkel, supra page 30) whereas Aren Maeir reminds us that this
view has been challenged by Singer-Avitz (2010 and 2012) and Finkelstein and
Piasetzky (2010), firstly because of the pottery of the site, and secondly be-
cause of the radiocarbon dates, which would as of yet only permit a dating of
the Iron Age occupation somewhere between 1050 BCE and 915 BCE. I agree
with Maeir that these different proposals of dating “do not change much in the
importance, and character, of the site” (Maeir, supra page 64, see also Lemaire
2015: 18). But maybe there is some impact for the understanding of the history
of the site whether one puts the date of its abandonment or destruction around
970 BCE or 915 BCE. A date by 915 would put the end of Iron Age Khirbet
Qeiyafa after Solomon,2 whereas 970 corresponds to the traditional date of the
2
Whose death is traditionally dated around 930 BCE.
KHIRBET QEIYAFA – SOME THOUGHTS OF A BIBLICAL SCHOLAR 75
end of King David’s rule. Is this only by chance that this date is suggested by
Garfinkel?
One should, however, remember that the length of 40 years which the bibli-
cal authors attribute to the reigns of both, David and Solomon, certainly reflect
the fact that they were unsure about the real dates so that they invented for both
a symbolic number. It is therefore possible that the duration of their respective
reigns was indeed a much shorter one (Finkelstein and Silberman 2006: 19–
20). This observation makes it already complicated to date the existence and
the end of Khirbet Qeiyafa precisely under one of the first Israelite or Judahite
kings.
A similar difficulty arises in regard to the question of the ethnicity of the
population of Khirbet Qeiyafa. In the current discussion three or even four
options are discussed. The site was a Judahite fortress and part of the Davidic
kingdom (the majority’s opinion), or it belonged to the Saulide kingdom
(Finkelstein 2013: 54–59), or it was a Philistine site (Na’aman 2008), or it
belonged to a “Canaanite” as-yet unidentified political identity (Na’aman 2010;
Koch 2012). Yosef Garfinkel and Aren Maeir opt – with different degrees of
certainty – for the Judahite identity of the site. However, Maeir rightly points
out “that the cultural borders in this region were quite fluid and [that] perhaps,
one should not talk of distinct cultural and/or political boundaries during this
period between the coastal plain and Philistia and the inland … regions”
(Maeir, supra page 65). Indeed, the biblical stories in the books of Samuel
depict a Philistine domination of the Shephelah and present David in some
stories as a vassal or a warlord in Philistine service. One may also ask whether
the application of our concepts of ethnicity and identity applied to the Levant
of the 2nd or 1st millennium BCE is not somewhat anachronistic. People living
in a certain area identified themselves probably more with a certain clan or
tribe than with a larger political entity, and people living in a certain territory
could probably come under rules of different kingdoms without being much
aware of that. This is evidenced by the Mesha inscription, where people living
north-east of the Dead Sea were sometimes under Israelite and sometimes un-
der Moabite rule. Did they consider themselves as Moabites or Israelites? Hard
to say.
I would like to add that the traditional opposition between “Canaanites” and
“Judahites” or “Israelites” should also be handled with much caution. As
shown by Othmar Keel and others (Keel 2002; Staubli 2011), in many biblical
texts the opposition between Canaan and Israel is an ideological one, and was
mainly set up in order to denigrate veneration of gods other than YHWH or
certain religious customs as “Canaanite” in a context of religious innovations
during the 7th or 6th centuries BCE that prepare the new religion that will be
called later “Judaism”. One should therefore define precisely in what sense one
uses the term “Canaanite”.
Yosef Garfinkel indicates some ethnic markers that according to him prove
the Judahite character of the site, like the absence of pig bones or the absence
76 THOMAS RÖMER
of anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figurines (Garfinkel, supra page 35). Does

this mean that he thinks that the Decalogue existed already in the 10th century
BCE? There is much evidence for “iconism” in Israel and Judah, figurines,
seals etc., as shown by Silvia Schroer, Christoph Uehlinger and others (Schroer
1987; Sass and Uehlinger 1993; Niehr 1993; Uehlinger 1996), so that the ab-
sence of such material cannot prove much in my view. The case of the pig
bones is interesting and complex. There is indeed a striking difference between
Khirbet Qeiyafa and Tell eṣ-Ṣafi. But does this mean the inhabitants of Khirbet
Qeiyafa respected already the kashrut? According to a rare consensus in North
American and European critical scholarship the two texts of Deut 14 and Lev
11 (one text probably depends on the other, or they share both a common Vor-
lage) date at earliest from the 7th or 6th century (Nihan 2007: 283–299). Ac-
cording to recent articles by Lidar Sapir-Hen et al. (2013 and 2015), it seems
indeed that there is a difference between pig husbandry in Iron Age Israel and
Judah. Contrary to Judah, pigs were apparently quite popular in cities of Israel;
however they only appear sparsely or not at all in non-urban settlements even
in the presumed Philistine territory. Maybe there are other explanations for the
avoidance of pigs in Judahite territories; it is, however, questionable whether
the absence of pig bones in Khirbet Qeiyafa should be seen as an ethnic mark-
er.
Let me now address some points related to the “Khirbet Qeiyafa and the
Bible”.
The Use of the Term “Minimalists”
According to Garfinkel’s presentation of the evolution of biblical scholarship,

since the 1980s “new approaches developed,” which gave rise to the “so-called
‘Minimalist school’ [that] claims that the Hebrew Bible was written in the
Hellenistic period” (Garfinkel, supra page 41). I am somewhat unhappy with
this use of the term “minimalists”. Garfinkel uses it also to qualify those who
suggested that Khirbet Qeiyafa is a Philistine city (Garfinkel, supra page 42).
But this has nothing to do with dating. So one may get the impression that
“minimalists” are all those who do not agree with Garfinkel’s interpretation of
the site and its historical role.
But let us come back to the use of “minimalist” to qualify biblical scholars. If
the question is about “dating the final writing of the Hebrew Bible” (Garfinkel,
supra page 41) into the Hellenistic period, then almost all academic scholars
are “minimalists”, because it is clear that all scrolls of what will become the
Hebrew Bible underwent revision as late as the Hellenistic period. As for the
Former Prophets, there are certainly revisions that took place still during the 3rd
or 2nd centuries. Suffice to remind of the important differences between the
Greek and the Hebrew texts in these books.
Dating the final revision of the books of Samuel (and others) into that time
does, however, not mean that they do not contain any historical memories and
that they were invented. As E. Axel Knauf and many others (Knauf 2001; Bret-
tler 1995; Blum 2000) have argued, the stories about the Philistine connections
of David are hardly set up in the Persian and Hellenistic period, but that does
not mean that they were written down by an eye-witness of the events.
If “minimalists” are all those who think that the narratives about David’s
ascent to the throne and his succession were composed later than during his
lifetime, then again almost all serious biblical scholars are “minimalists”, but
contrary to Garfinkel’s presentation most scholars would also date the first
edition of the books of Samuel and other biblical books much earlier than the
Hellenistic period, in the 8th or 7th century BCE. I would suggest to refrain
from using the term of “minimalists” in a too broad sense because it is of more
ideological than scientific use.
The “House of David” and the Problem of the “Historical David”
Yosef Garfinkel makes rightly use of the Tel Dan inscription (Garfinkel, supra
page 41) that mentions, if one follows the reading of a very large majority, a
“house of David” (see for an overview Athas 2003). The identification of the
same expression in the Mesha stele is, however, less certain: André Lemaire
has suggested to read in the very damaged line 31 “House of David” (Lemaire
1994), whereas Nadav Na’aman has suggested “house of Daudoh”, a local
ruling family (Na’aman 1997). The problem is that in line 12 there is already a
mention of DWD but followed by an H, which could be a suffix. The expres-
sion ’R’L DWDH can hardly be translated as a reference to David (as suggest-
ed by Rainey 2001), but seems more likely refer to the name of a deity (his
“Beloved one”) and his altar, that Mesha takes as a booty. So for the moment
the only clear mention of a “House of David” – according to the vast majority
– is the Tel Dan inscription.
But here again we should apply a strict methodology in reading this inscrip-
tion. The mention of a “House of David” in an inscription from the 9th or 8th
century does not prove per se the historicity of King David. It only proves that
the kingdom of Judah was also named “House of David”, parallel to the
“House of Omri” that appears in Assyrian sources. The Tel Dan inscription
tells us only that a man called David was considered to be the founder of the
Judahite dynasty.
There is an interesting parallel with the figure of Balaam, who appears in
the Bible in Numbers 22–24 and also in the wall inscription of Tell Deir Alla
dated to the 9th or 7th century. If one compares both texts, it is clear that they
both refer to the same seer Balaam, son of Beor, but the biblical account that
presents Balaam interacting with YHWH is quite different from the text of
Deir Alla (Blum 2008). It appears therefore that the author(s) of Numbers 22–
78 THOMAS RÖMER
24 have taken over a traditional legendary or historical figure in order to set up

their own account.
The Tel Dan inscription can therefore not be used to postulate the historici-
ty of the biblical accounts about David. It only shows that David was at the
time when the inscription was made considered to be the founder of a dynasty.
The Model Shrine and the Temple of Solomon
The very interesting shrine model discovered in Khirbet Qeiyafa is presented

by Yosef Garfinkel as a proof that there was already a model for Solomon’s
temple before he built the sanctuary. I have no competence in deciding whether
this model is a local one or whether it belongs to the imported goods that have
been discovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa. Similar shrines are also known from
Phoenicia (Keel 1997: 158–159) so that one should also check the possibility
of an imported model. The other question is, however, how this model can be
related to Solomon’s temple. If one reads the biblical account in 1 Kings 6–8
one may ask with Konrad Rupprecht (1977) if the account is not more an ac-
count about a restoration of a former sanctuary than a new building. Again, the
biblical text of 1 Kings 6–8 did not originate from the report of an eye-witness
of the 10th century but was written and heavily edited much later and in a quite
complicated way, as indicated by the important differences that exist between
MT and LXX. One should therefore be careful by claiming a direct relation
between Solomon’s temple and the shrine model.
The Identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa with the City of Shaaraim
Because of the presence of two city-gates, Yosef Garfinkel claims that the site
should be identified with biblical Shaaraim.
In his monograph on Joshua 15, Jacobus de Vos (de Vos 2003: 388), re-
minds us of earlier identifications of Shaaraim: Khirbet esh-Sharī‛a (Dagan
1996: 139; map ref. 145.124), Khirbet es-Sa‛īre/Ṣaġīre (Aḥituv 1995: 260; map
ref. 145.124) or Khirbet Sa‛īre (Rainey 1975: 70; map ref. 152.127). The
names of these sites may indeed keep some memories of the name Shaaraim or
Shaarim.
Shaaraim is mentioned three times in the Hebrew Bible: in Joshua 15:36, 1
Samuel 17:52 and 1 Chronicles 4:31. Let us consider briefly the content of
these passages:
Joshua 15:36 is part of a description of the towns belonging to Judah, and
the section – often qualified as “District II” – concerns cities of the Shephelah:
33
And in the Lowland, Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah, 34 Zanoah, En-gannim, Tappuah,
Enam, 35 Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah, 36 Shaaraim, Adithaim, Gederah,
Gederothaim: fourteen towns and their villages3.
Older research has often considered the list of Judahite towns as “priestly”
or “post-priestly” (for a history of research cf. de Vos 2003: 491–520). Follow-
ing Albrecht Alt (1925) who suggested that the list reflects an administrative
organization under Josiah, recent commentaries have argued for a 7th century
date, as for instance E. Axel Knauf (2008: 145): “Die Ortsliste verwertet eine
geographische Statistik des Königreichs Juda vom Ende des 7. Jh. v. Chr.”.
Frank Moore Cross and G. Ernest Wright (1956: 226) and also Volkmar Fritz
(1994: 164) suppose that the list is older and think of the time between the 9th
and the 8th century BCE. Even if one accepts this “high” date, it does not fit
well with the suggested identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa, because why would
a destroyed place be counted among Judahite towns and villages during the
time of the monarchy?
The mention of Shaaraim in Chronicles occurs also in a list (1 Chr 4),
which has Joshua 15 and Joshua 19 as Vorlage. The context is a genealogy of
the tribe of Simeon (starting in v. 24):
28
They lived in Beer-sheba, Moladah, Hazar-shual, 29 Bilhah, Ezem, Tolad, 30 Be-
thuel, Hormah, Ziklag, 31 Beth-marcaboth, Hazar-susim, Beth-biri, and Shaaraim.
These were their towns until David became king and their villages.
The book of Chronicles is commonly dated (with almost no exception) to the

late Persian or early Hellenistic period. Interestingly, places that in Joshua 15
and 19 belong to Judah are here attributed to the Simeonites, a tribe that in
other biblical texts is closely related to Judah (especially in Judges 1). There is
much discussion why in the Persian or Hellenistic period the author of 1
Chronicles 4 makes such a change. Gary Knoppers (2004: 372–375) points out
that the Chronicler – contrary to the so-called Deuteronomistic History, which
presents the history of the Northern and Southern kingdoms – is more interest-
ed in a “tribal” Israel. This question does not need to be discussed further. In-
terestingly v. 31 ends with the statement “These were their towns until David
became king and their villages”. This phrase has sometimes been considered a
gloss, the aim of which would be to harmonize the attributions of these places
to the Simeonites with the book of Joshua by claiming that there were only
Simeonites until the beginning of the monarchy (Michaeli 1967: 50).
The mention of Shaaraim may not have played a major role in this context,
since the author of 1 Chronicles 4 just took it over from Joshua 15.
3
There is a problem with the number 14, since 15 places are enumerated. The last name is
probably the result of dittography (Fritz 1994: 166).
80 THOMAS RÖMER
The third mention of Shaaraim occurs at the end of the David and Goliath
narrative in 1 Samuel 17, where after David’s victory, the Philistines are entire-
ly defeated.
52
The men of Israel and Judah rose up and shouted and pursued the Philistines
[lacking in LXX] as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron (šaʿărê eqrôn), so that the
wounded Philistines fell on the way of Shaaraim (bəd̲ erek̲ ə šaʿărayim); as far as
Gath and Ekron.
There is a text-critical problem in this verse. Instead of “way of Shaaraim”,

LXX reads: ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ τῶν πυλῶν. Therefore several scholars following Well-
hausen (1871: 109–110) translate “they fell on the road of the [Twin] Gates”
(Auld 2011: 205, see also 207; Dhorme 1910: 157). If one does not accept this
text-critical operation, the verse would rather suggest a location of Shaaraim
west of Azekah, since it appears then as the most Western place before arriving
in Gath or Ekron (de Vos 2003: 393–394; Knoppers 2003: 366).
Whatever decision one is willing to take, the text does not reflect a situation
of the 10th century. The mention of the “troops of Israel and Judah” may indi-
cate that the text reflects the situation of the two kingdoms. In addition, Goli-
ath’s armor reflects the garb of Greek hoplites in the 7th to the 5th centuries
BCE (Finkelstein 2002: 147). – The story is therefore hardly older than the 8th
or 7th century.
Yosef Garfinkel writes that “the biblical traditions do indeed locate a large
number of military clashes in these settings” (Garfinkel, supra page 45). If the
“setting” means Khirbet Qeiyafa = Shaaraim, 1 Samuel 17:52 would be the
only place. If he alludes to the conflicts between the Philistines and the “Israel-
ites” that are related in the books of Samuel, things become more complicated,
since David also appears as an ally of the Philistines, so that one could even
speculate whether the “historical David” was in fact a Philistine vassal.
Summing up our enquiry on the biblical Shaaraim, it can be said that none
of the three texts belong to the beginning of the 1st millennium. In fact, it is
even possible that there was only one mention of Shaaraim in the Hebrew Bi-
ble if Joshua 15 has been copied (partially) by the author of 1 Chronicles 44
and if 1 Samuel 17 alluded to city gates.
Be that as it may, it is clear that the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa with
Shaaraim raises two related problems that should be resolved: Khirbet Qeiyafa
was destroyed or abandoned in the 10th century BCE. Why then is the site men-
tioned, not as an important site of the past as for instance Shilo, but en passant,
in texts from the 8th to the 4th century BCE? If Khirbet Qeiyafa was an im-
portant place of David’s reign, coming immediately after Jerusalem, as sug-
4
And even there some suspect that the primitive text did not mention Shaaraim (see the
summary in Knoppers 2003: 361)
gested by Yosef Garfinkel, why then are the biblical texts not at all interested
in this place?5
What Happened to Khirbet Qeiyafa?
The short lifespan of Khirbet Qeiyafa in the 10th century BCE is commonly
accepted. The interesting question, however, is: how do we explain the end of
the site? Was it destroyed and by whom? Aren Maeir suggests to understand
the existence of the site as a “short lived attempt of the Judahite polity to ex-
tend its influence to the west”, an attempt that was squashed by the Kingdom
of Gath (Maeir, supra page 81). If this is the case, why don’t we have traces of
that in the Hebrew Bible? If Khirbet Qeiyafa was so important for the Davidic
administration why is its disappearance not reflected at all in the Bible? In my
view this question is important in order to solve the historical riddle of Khirbet
Qeiyafa.
Brief Summary
Everyone will agree that the excavation of the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa counts
among the most important archaeological finds in Israel during the last decades
and we should thank Yosef Garfinkel for sharing so quickly the important dis-
coveries that he and his team made. Khirbet Qeiyafa sheds new light on the
10th century BCE, but we still need to understand what this new light means for
historical and biblical research. Maybe one should not “personalize” the site
too much by relating all kinds of buildings and finds to David and Solomon. It
could be that the historical reality of the 10th century in Judah and Philistia is
quite different from a biblical historicist reconstruction.
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The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon in its Setting
Benjamin SASS
The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon was found in a stratum well set apart stratigraph-
ically, and its relative dating around the Iron I–II transition is more or less
settled. For the 14C dating the first two thirds of the 10th century seem to be
preferable, further considerations probably pinpointing the Iron I–II transition
to the middle decades of the century. The contents of the ostracon, except for a
few words or parts of words, remain undeciphered, and the nature of the text
cannot be determined. Despite various attempts, the biblical name of the site
remains unknown. The issue of the site’s affiliation – ethnic and political, pre-
sents numerous open questions, to which conflicting answers have been offered
– Philistine, Canaanite, Judahite (and Davidic), Benjaminite (and Saulide)…
While some proposals may be more plausible than others, the speculative na-
ture of all is clearly manifest, hence my feeling that the debate about Qeiyafa’s
affiliation is currently adrift in over-interpretation. The aim of the paper thus is
to review all the above open questions and a few more, while emphasizing the
limitations of the data. An excursus addresses the architectural décor of the
Qeiyafa limestone ark or model shrine.
Introduction
Yosef Garfinkel’s excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa are amongst the most fasci-
nating in Israel in the last decade. The ostracon (Misgav, Garfinkel and Ganor
2009; Fig. 1 herein), written in ink on a sherd of a locally-made jar (ibid.: 244),
has been the subject of numerous popular and scholarly publications. And
whether or not one agrees with Garfinkel’s ideas about Qeiyafa – in particular
his well-publicized wish to interpret the site as part of a developed Davidic
kingdom ca. 1000 BCE (e.g. Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: vii) – one is prompted
by them to think and to rethink old positions. Indeed, the site proved so unusu-
al, so incompatible with existing points of view, that it sent colleagues scram-
bling for explanations.
The starting-point for the inquiry is Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 159, from
where I attempt to take the study of the ostracon’s time-frame, and Qeiyafa’s
setting, a few steps forward.1 This paper addresses the ostracon’s archaeologi-
1
The paper benefited significantly from Israel Finkelstein’s involvement. He has gone
over the manuscript, and his numerous observations and ideas, now integrated into the
text, are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are equally due to Thomas Römer for his ad-
vice regarding the biblical issues and for most of the bibliographical references to bibli-
cal studies. Both of them do not necessarily share the views expressed herein.
88 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 1: The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon (courtesy of the Qeiyafa expedition, photo Megavision
Lab).
cal context, relative dating of the context by pottery, relative dating of the os-
tracon by palaeography (this is the longest chapter), identification of words,
nature of the text, and Qeiyafa’s ethnic and political affiliation. An excursus
addresses the architectural décor of the Qeiyafa limestone ark or model shrine.
The Archaeological Context, and Its Relative Dating by Pottery
Fortunately for West Semitic palaeography, the Iron Age layer in which the
Qeiyafa ostracon was unearthed is set apart stratigraphically (Garfinkel and
Ganor 2009: 32–35; Misgav, Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: 243): Founded on
bedrock,2 Qeiyafa Stratum IV is followed, after a considerable gap, by the late
Persian – early Hellenistic Stratum III. Accordingly, the archaeological context
of the ostracon is assured.
Yet, the identification of the precise Iron Age phase of Stratum IV has been
contested. Garfinkel and Kang (2011: 180–181) were in favour of early Iron
2
Isolated Middle Bronze sherds were also found, but no architecture or finds in situ (Gar-
finkel and Ganor 2009: 33).
THE KHIRBET QEIYAFA OSTRACON IN ITS SETTING 89
IIA, whereas in Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 159, elaborating on studies by Sin-
ger-Avitz (2010, 2012) and Gilboa (2012), among others, we have opted for
the very end of Iron Age I or the Iron Age I–II transition, a proposal first made
in Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012: note 3; not very differently also Garfinkel
and Kang 2012: 181.3 This uncertainty is real: it is due to the unique character
of the pottery assemblage in short-lived Stratum IV, revealing a point in the
Iron Age never isolated before. The assemblage “post-dates classical late Iron I
settlements such as Tel Qasile X and Beth-Shemesh 4 and pre-dates classic
early Iron IIA settlements such as Lachish V and Arad XII (and thus, for the
time being, this phase is unknown at any other site)” (Finkelstein and Fantalkin
loc. cit.). On further reflection, Beth-Shemesh 4 could belong rather close to
Qeiyafa IV,4 so that both strata may probably be ascribed to the Iron I–II tran-
sition. Once archaeology has become aware of its existence, this transitional
phase will hopefully be detected at more sites, and eventually be understood
better.
Relative Dating of the Ostracon by Palaeography
An abridged history of the alphabet up to Iron IIA is presented first, integrating

the Qeiyafa letters once the Iron I–II transition is reached.
The alphabet was created by speakers of a West Semitic tongue either in the
Sinai under Egyptian domination or in Egypt itself, mostly employing hiero-
glyphic Egyptian models for the pictographic letters (e.g. Sass 2005a, 2008). It
was Albright (1926: 75), who first labelled the inscriptions “Proto-Sinaitic”.
Frustratingly, the dating evidence is contradictory; it seems to point to two
alternative time-frames, very wide apart, for the birth of the alphabet: either ca.
1800 BCE, an idea revived by Goldwasser (e.g. 2006: 143–144; 2012: 12), or
ca. 1300 BCE (Sass 2005a: 157). This issue, and several others concerning the
alphabet in the 2nd millennium and its birthplace, cannot be developed further
in the present paper.
The next phase in the history of the alphabet is no less enigmatic. Under
still obscure circumstances, alphabetic writing seems to have vanished from
Egypt, resurfacing in the Egyptian-controlled Shephelah (Sass 2005a: 152–
156; Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 183–184 and Map 1). If one is looking for
stratified inscriptions only, the alphabet is found first in Late Bronze contexts
3
“The pottery assemblage of Khirbet Qeiyafa is a typological ‘bridge’ between two peri-
ods. It maintains the Iron Age I tradition, while introducing several characteristics that
later became the classical markers of the Iron Age IIA. Being a single-period Iron Age
site of short duration, Khirbet Qeiyafa reveals a curtailed time-span of 20 years or so, …
Such a short period could never be identified at large tell sites because they were occu-
pied continuously for hundreds of years.”
4
Bunimovitz and Lederman 2016: 213–214. Both Qeiyafa IV and Beth-Shemesh 4 are
post-bichrome, hence probably later than Qasile X.
90 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 2: Tel Reḥov Inscription 2 (Aḥituv and Mazar 2014: 190; courtesy of A. Mazar, Tel
Reḥov Excavations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
of the 13th and 12th centuries at Lachish and neighbouring sites – Qubur al-
Walaydah and possibly Tel Nagila (Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 153–156, 176,
with earlier references).5 In this phase the alphabet lost many of its pictograph-
ic aspects while still keeping others; it also kept multidirectional writing. Frank
Moore Cross (e.g. Cross and Freedman 1952: 7) labelled this stage “Proto-
Canaanite”. One may as well employ the term “linear alphabet” (e.g. Cross
1967: 10*), in order to distinguish this script from its contemporary adoption in
cuneiform guise in Ugarit and the rest of the northern and central Levant.
And to yet another enigma: Judging by the stratified inscriptions – and they
are still very few – the linear alphabet seems to have remained confined to the
Shephelah for the next three or four hundred years – Late Bronze II–III and
Iron I. Meanwhile, the region has become Philistia. Only in early Iron IIA did
the alphabet begin to spread to Phoenicia and to other parts of the West Semitic
area (Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 157–163, 173–175, 187–189, with Map 2).6
The earliest stratified example of the linear alphabet outside Philistia and its
vicinity, dating to early Iron IIA, comes from Tel Reḥov on the Israel–Aram
border. A complete jar uncovered in situ in Stratum VI (Fig. 2) bears letters
that still look Proto-Canaanite, though meticulously executed. Two inscribed
sherds were also found in this stratum (Mazar and Aḥituv 2011: 300–302 =
5
On the Lachish dagger and Gezer Sherd see Sass 2005a: 150, 153 and passim; Finkel-
stein and Sass 2013: 156.
6
In the rest of the Levant beyond Philistia, wherever the alphabet was in use before early
Iron IIA, it may have been the cuneiform version (Sass 2005b: 53–54).
Fig. 3: ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah ostracon (Sass 1988: Fig. 175).
Aḥituv and Mazar 2014: 40–42; Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 161). Moreover,
the complete jar comes from an early phase of early Iron IIA at Reḥov (Aḥituv
and Mazar 2014: 40). Founded, as it is, on the limited stratified material avail-
able, our dating of the movement of the alphabet beyond Philistia to early Iron
IIA and not earlier will be substantiated or challenged by future discoveries.
But even in Philistia proper not a single inscription in the linear alphabet
from a secure early or middle Iron I context can be accounted for, an absence
possibly reflecting a diminished usage of writing (Finkelstein and Sass 2013:
176). And also in late Iron I the alphabet is not represented for sure: the chief
Iron I site in the region, Tel Miqne, yielded no contemporary texts at all, and
the four inscribed sherds from other sites in Philistia and its environs with let-
ter-shapes similar to Qeiyafa may belong to either late Iron I or early Iron IIA.
Moreover, early Iron IIA seems to possess a certain edge for at least two in-
scriptions among the four (below).
This brings me back to the Qeiyafa ostracon (Fig. 1). It contains more than
60 letters, so that among the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions it is currently the
second longest – just behind the ‛Izbet Ṣarṭah ostracon with 84 letters (Finkel-
stein and Sass 2013: 157, 159; Fig. 3 herein). The script of the Qeiyafa ostra-
con is still entirely Proto-Canaanite, preserving some pictographic aspects like
the dot in the ʿayin, as well as the left-to-right text and variable direction of the
individual letters. The three different stances of the alep are particularly eye-
catching (Misgav, Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: 250, 252).
Of the other four inscriptions from the region with Proto-Canaanite writing
similar to Qeiyafa, only one is stratified, or possibly stratified:
92 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 4: Tell eṣ-Ṣafi sherd (Maeir et al. 2008: 49).
– The hand-burnished Tell eṣ-Ṣafi sherd (Maeir et al. 2008; Finkelstein and
Sass 2013: 159–160; Fig. 4 herein) comes from the early Iron IIA Layer
A4. But such surface treatment emerges already late in Iron I and, due to its
small size, the sherd could alternatively be a stray from the previous level,
as noted by Maeir et al. (2008: 47). On the other hand, the conspicuous ab-
sence of inscriptions at late Iron I Tel Miqne (above) may weaken the op-
tion of a similar dating for the Tell eṣ-Ṣafi sherd, substantiating its origin in
the early Iron IIA stratum in which it was unearthed.
– Two of the three other texts – the Beth-Shemesh Baal sherd and ostracon
(Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 157, 159; Figs. 5–6 herein) – are unstratified,
and the fourth, the ‛Izbet Ṣarṭah ostracon, already mentioned (Fig. 3), was
found in a secondary deposition. It is thus impossible to judge by their con-
texts how close in time to one another the five sherds and their letter types
are. This is why in the 2013 paper (loc. cit.) we gave the three a range simi-
lar to the maximum conceivable for the Tell eṣ-Ṣafi sherd – late Iron I to
early Iron IIA; at the time it seemed to us the safest guess. With hindsight,
early Iron IIA is possibly the likelier option also for the Beth-Shemesh os-
tracon, the nearest parallel to the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon among the four
inscriptions mentioned above. Both are written in ink, and there are similar-
ities in the script, for instance the alep. The unstratified Beth-Shemesh text
may thus be attributed by way of conjecture to Stratum 4 of the current ex-
cavation (see “The archaeological context, and its relative dating by pot-
tery” above, with note 4).
Fig. 5: Beth-Shemesh Baal sherd (McCarter, Bunimovitz and Lederman 2011: 188).
Fig. 6: Beth-Shemesh ostracon (Sass 1988: Figs. 169, 170).
Finally, I am coming to the unstratified Ophel pithos sherd (Mazar, Ben-

Shlomo and Aḥituv 2013; Fig. 7 herein). Its letter shapes are relatively close to
those from Khirbet Qeiyafa and the four other texts just mentioned. But, be-
yond other issues, an enigma concerning the Ophel sherd has to be solved be-
fore we can draw any conclusion from the said closeness: It is about the appar-
ent contradiction between the archaic letter shapes of the Ophel inscription,
seemingly fitting an early Iron IIA dating at the latest, and the advanced form
94 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 7: Ophel pithos sherd (Mazar, Ben-Shlomo and Aḥituv 2013: Fig. 3).
of the pithos, fitting a late Iron IIA dating at the earliest (Mazar, Ben-Shlomo
and Aḥituv 2013: 43;7 Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 162–163).
Identified Words and the Nature of the Text
Some words, or roots, or name-components, in the Qeiyafa ostracon are legi-

ble: mlk, ʿbd, špṭ, perhaps a few more, among 20-odd words in all. They were
pointed out in the first edition by Misgav (2009: 254–255) and by Yardeni
(2009), and mostly agreed to by subsequent commentators. For the contents of
the ostracon I thus follow these two authors, as well as Millard (2011) and
Lemaire (2012: 5–6) who, realizing how little is legible and how unclear the
word division often is, refrained from offering a total reconstruction. Taking
these difficulties into account, two or three cautious suggestions as to the pos-
sible general sense of the text were also made. But this sober judgment held no
appeal for other colleagues, who saw letters even where the common herd
discerns nothing. Their complete reconstructions and decipherments are indeed
enchanting; no two of them are the same, though. Returning to the prosaic
7
“Even though no type B pithos has yet been found in any other early Iron IIA context, it
is plausible, on the basis of the abovementioned evidence, that it should be dated to a
developed phase of that period.”
reality, one cannot reach conclusions about the ostracon’s content from just a
handful of words or parts thereof.8
The Ethnic and Political Affiliation of Khirbet Qeiyafa
In theory, one could tackle Khirbet Qeiyafa’s affiliation according to at least

four criteria: the language of the ostracon, the location of the site, its biblical
name, and its material culture.9 In practice the limitations of the data render
this inquiry all but impossible. Hence each of the open questions concerning
the identity of Khirbet Qeiyafa’s inhabitants and rulers is remarked on below,
but not the proposed answers: Some of them may be more convincing than
others, but not a single one can be shown to be conclusive.10
1. Language
The language of the Qeiyafa ostracon is not decided. By the location of the site
the language spoken there likely belongs to the Canaanite family, and one Ca-
naanite language, Phoenician, can to the best of my knowledge be excluded on
the same evidence: In this southerly region and early period it is an improbable
option. The choice is rather between a language spoken in the Shephelah and
Judahite Hebrew,11 yet we know next to nothing about the two in the 10th cen-
tury, and it is certainly impossible to tell them apart from the mere handful of
legible strings of letters in the ostracon.12
8
The question of the ostracon’s language is addressed in the next section.
9
The ostracon’s letter shapes in relation to the language of the text are not addressed: At
this early date they are not yet differentiated by language or region – into Hebrew, Ara-
maic, Phoenician etc.; this happened subsequently, in late Iron IIA and in Iron IIB
(Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 175–176, and passim). Nor are the identifications of the in-
dividual letters in the editio princeps (Misgav, Garfinkel and Ganor 2009; Yardeni
2009), about half of the 60-plus total, dealt with in the present paper.
10
Among these proposals are Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: 8–10, and Galil 2009 (Davidic);
Na’aman 2008, 2010, and Koch 2012: 55–56 (Canaanite); Finkelstein and Fantalkin
2012, and Levin 2014 (Saulide).
11
Working back from the few Philistian texts of the 7th century (Naveh in Dothan, Gitin
and Naveh 1997: 13; Gitin and Cogan 1999; Lemaire 2000), the language of Qeiyafa
Stratum IV, while not Phoenician itself, could show affinities with neighboring Phoeni-
cian, possibly also with Israelite Hebrew, besides the more likely Judahite Hebrew. As is
well known, Philistia has eventually undergone a ‘Phoenicianization’, but this started
later than the Iron I–II transition.
12
A further criterion for the site’s affiliation could in theory be the typological dating of
Khirbet Qeiyafa’s script in relation to the alphabet’s evolving distribution between Iron I
and II: If the ostracon just precedes the early Iron IIA diffusion of the alphabet to other
parts of the Levant (see “Relative dating of the ostracon by palaeography” above), its
writing belongs westwards to Philistia, the core area of the linear alphabet. But in reality
such precision within early Iron IIA is beyond the resolution that archaeology or palae-
ography can provide.
96 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 8: Khirbet Qeiyafa’s location between Philistia and Judah (courtesy of the Qeiyafa
expedition = Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: 26).
2. The Site’s Location

Qeiyafa is situated between the highlands and the lowlands (Fig. 8). Tell eṣ-
Ṣafi/Gath lies some 10 km to the west and Jerusalem 30 km to the east. But I
doubt whether the attempts by several commentators to decide the site’s affilia-
tion by its position, dating, and the biblical text can be of any use. The availa-
ble data is far too meager.
3. The Ancient Name of the Site

Likewise of little or no use are about seven proposed identifications of Qeiyafa
with biblical place-names:13 From their excessive diversity and the lack of
consensus I cannot but conclude that the ancient name of the site remains un-
known. Besides, the 10th century name of short-lived Qeiyafa Stratum IV is not
guaranteed to be mentioned in the biblical text written centuries later.
4. Material Culture – Architecture and Movable Finds

– The plan of the site (Fig. 9). With a casemate wall crowning a hilltop, the
plan is obviously befitting the hill country. That the site is fortified and the
13
See the references in note 10 to some of these proposals.
Fig. 9: Khirbet Qeiyafa – plan (courtesy of the Qeiyafa expedition).
fortifications are meticulously constructed is remarkable in itself for this

early period, and the presence of two gates a specialty.14
But can the plan as such decide whether the inhabitants and/or rulers of the
site were Judahite, Benjaminite, Philistine, Canaanite…, or is the plan es-
sentially practical? I prefer the latter. True, contemporary casemate walls
are known in Benjamin (Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012: 42–43), but why
should they be the inspiration for Qeiyafa, if such walls are known in con-
temporary Moab too? Is it not conceivable that anyone who controlled this
hilltop and required fortifications and could afford them, would have
14
Interestingly, the openings of the casemates on each side of each gate are always orient-
ed away from the gate (Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2012: 164, Fig. 13).
98 BENJAMIN SASS
adapted their construction to the topography and available building materi-

al – limestone – in a similar fashion for maximum advantage? The fact that
so few excavated settlements from the Iron I–II transition period have for-
tifications does not indicate that such fortifications were forgotten every-
where else. On the contrary: As shown by its grand revival in Iron II, the
2nd millennium expertise in architecture and art seems to have been kept in
memory throughout Iron I even while seldom applied (e.g. Sass 2005b: 21,
77; Ben-Shlomo and Dothan 2006; Ben-Shlomo 2011).
– The pottery assemblage. With the presence of certain Judahite and coastal
types and absence of others, the pottery fits “the specific location of the
site between the highlands and the Coastal Plain” (Finkelstein and
Fantalkin 2012: 49–50, citing Garfinkel and Kang, and Singer-Avitz), and
as such it can hardly instruct us about who inhabited or controlled Qeiyafa
– Judahites, Philistines or others.
– The absence of pig bones. Can this absence be taken for an indicator of
‘Judahiteness’ (cf. Garfinkel, supra pages 27 and 43 and Maeir, supra
page 62)? Pig bones are duly absent from Judahite sites as far as I know,
but also from contemporary non-Judahite ones (Sapir-Hen et al. 2013: 10).
In borderline Qeiyafa the said absence does not resolve the site’s ethnic af-
filiation.
On the Absolute Dating and Historical Setting

of Khirbet Qeiyafa and Its Ostracon
Yosef Garfinkel’s widely advertised perception of Qeiyafa as part of a devel-

oped Davidic kingdom sets out from the traditional chronology of the early
Israelite kings (below), combined with the veteran notion that Iron IIA is the
archaeological manifestation of the United Monarchy as described in the Bible.
In this way early Iron IIA is made to correspond to David’s reign, both begin-
ning ca. 1000 BCE. As noted below, the uncritical equation of the eighty reg-
nal years accorded to David and Solomon in the Bible with years BCE and
archaeological periods, can hardly serve as a guideline in this case.
The absolute dates assigned herein to the period in question follow the low
chronology. First proposed twenty years ago (Finkelstein 1996), the beginning
of this system has been revised upwards since – with the Iron I–II transition re-
dated to the mid 10th century; the transition from early to late Iron IIA remains
in the early 9th century (e.g. Finkelstein and Sass 2013: 180).15 By way of para-
15
The upward adjustment was brought about by the accumulation of 14C dates, at the same
time adopting the emphasis which Herzog and Singer-Avitz (2004; 2006; 2011) put on
subdividing Iron IIA into early and late. Archaeologically, the transition from early to
late Iron IIA in the early 9th century is no less significant than the transition from Iron I
to Iron II several decades before: This leaves the Omride attribution of late Iron IIA stra-
ta with the first monumental Iron Age architecture much as in the original proposal. In
phrase one may now speak of a modified low chronology, whose beginning for
the Iron Age II is not too different from that of Amihai Mazar’s ‘modified
conventional chronology’ (see Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2011).16
Regarding the 14C datings for Qeiyafa Stratum IV, Garfinkel’s range (Gar-
finkel et al. 2012: 362–363) is 1046–996, while Finkelstein and Piasetzky’s
(2015: 901–902) is 1010–936 – both at 68% probability. The former range
refers to the Iron I–II transitional phase at Qeiyafa alone, the latter to Qeiyafa
in its regional context – with neighbouring sites such as Beth-Shemesh indicat-
ing that Iron I lasted into the second half of the 11th century. Further considera-
tions may reduce the duration of the Iron I–II transition to the middle of the
10th century (e.g. Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2011: 51; Finkelstein and Sass
2013: 180).
A few words on the chronology of the early biblical kings may be in order
concerning Garfinkel’s ideas about the Davidic affiliation of Khirbet Qeiyafa.
A typical follower of the traditional Bible chronology, Cogan (1992: table on
p. 1010), made the 2 years allotted to Saul in 2 Samuel 13:1 into 20, yet ac-
cepted the biblical numbers of 40 + 40 for David (2 Samuel 5:4) and Solomon
(1 Kings 11:42), and an estimated 3-year coregency. He thus arrived at 1025–
1005, 1005–965 and 968–928 for Saul, David and Solomon respectively. In
contrast, numerous colleagues regard the biblical numbers for David and Sol-
omon as typological, meaning no more than “long reign”, and almost certainly
too long.17
Likewise, some do question the biblical number of 140 years or so, count-
ing from Omri’s accession ca. 882 BCE back to Saul’s.18 Indeed, the schematic
100-year time of Saul, David and Solomon should almost certainly be short-
ened – by how much is anybody’s guess. And while their regnal lengths are
the same spirit, Finkelstein and Sass 2013 revised upward also several of the absolute
datings of inscriptions proposed in Sass 2005b, in which this revision and subdivision
were not yet followed.
16
The Iron I–II transition in Mazar’s chronology was gradually revised downwards while
Finkelstein’s was being revised upwards, until both practically met in the middle. Re-
cently, Mazar dated the transition “no later than 960 BCE” (Mazar and Bronk Ramsey
2010: 1682), and somewhat differently three years afterwards: “the Iron I/II transition
started in the first half of the 10th century and ended in the second half” (Lee, Bronk
Ramsey and Mazar 2013: 739).
17
Here is but one example from a recent publication, Levin 2014: 53: “The attribution of
exactly forty years to both David and Solomon is surprising, for it is unreasonable that
father and son should each have reigned for so many years. In particular the typological
number forty, symbolizing a ‘complete period’ in the Hebrew Bible and in other ancient
sources, raises the suspicion of being inexact. It is thus well-nigh possible that David’s
accession should be lowered by several decades, into the 10th century.” (So in the re-
worked Hebrew version; not in Levin 2012.)
18
Omri being the earliest Israelite king linked to the absolute chronology of Assyria.
100 BENJAMIN SASS
recorded in the Bible with apparent precision, the later pre-Omrides lack any
extra-biblical corroboration.19
However, not only the regnal years of the early Israelite kings are problem-
atic: As is long known, most if not all the biblical text referring to the United
Monarchy is later than the events described, and there is hardly an agreement
on which are the most reliable passages. Fact and fiction are so intermixed in
the Saul, David and Solomon accounts, the inner contradictions so abundant,
that numerous questions are left open: Did the three (or more?) kings reign in
succession, or in part simultaneously?20 Over one and the same kingdom, or
separately over two?21 Or three?22 What was the extent of these kingdoms?23
Was Solomon a genuine Davidide, or has he been designated so retrospective-
ly?24 Unsurprisingly there is little consensus, with perhaps a single exception:
most specialists will agree that the biblical accounts and regnal lengths of Saul,
David and Solomon, as they stand, cannot be taken for eyewitness reports, and
should not be made use of without caution in any chronological or historical
reconstruction.
Can the early kings be synchronized with archaeological periods? If the
Iron I–II transition is placed about the mid 10th century (above), do all pre-
Omride kings fit into the ca. 50–70 years of early Iron IIA, or should the earli-
est among them be relegated to late Iron I? The perception of the absolute dates
for these kings is vague enough to permit several scenarios.
Outcome and epilogue
Back to Qeiyafa’s location and archaeology with regard to the questions ad-
dressed above, here is an outline of the diverse answers proposed herein and of
the questions that remain open, arranged by descending order of their reliabil-
ity.
Reliable
• The archaeological context: Qeiyafa’s Stratum IV is well set apart strati-
graphically.
• The relative dating of the pottery to the Iron I–II transition is essentially
agreed. It refines moreover the wider relative range of the ostracon obtained
by letter typology.
19
And so, some commentators contemplated whether Jeroboam ben Nebat is but a retro-
jection based on Jeroboam ben Joash (e.g. Römer 2014: 144).
20
E.g. Edelman 1996: 158; Finkelstein 2002: 127–128.
21
Loc. cit.
22
E.g. Knauf 1991: 174 and note 25 = 2013a: 90.
23
E.g. Finkelstein 2013.
24
E.g. Veijola 1979 = 2000; Knauf 1997: 87–90 = 2013b: 155–158.
Plausible
• On the absolute 14C chronology of Qeiyafa Stratum IV, I prefer the ap-
proach that addresses the dating in its regional context, pointing to roughly
the first two thirds of the 10th century. Further considerations may narrow
the Iron I–II transition in the region, and hence Qeiyafa Stratum IV, down
to the middle decades of that century.
Too many conflicting answers per question = effectively none

• Attempted identification of Qeiyafa’s ethnic and political affiliation.
• Attempted identification of Qeiyafa’s biblical name.
• Attempted identification of the ostracon’s language and contents by words
deciphered or presumed deciphered.
The bids to guess the ethnic and political affiliation of Qeiyafa, its biblical
name, the language of the ostracon, and its contents were inconclusive. Let me
summarize here just the first two.
• Judging by the location of Qeiyafa between the highlands and the lowlands,
the population may have regarded itself as belonging to one of just two
main groups, Judahite or Philistine and spoken one of just two languages.
Or else the inhabitants had a wider array of options to choose their identity
from. We simply do not know.
• Nor can a clear picture of the political affiliation and historical setting of
Qeiyafa Stratum IV be gained directly from the data collected. A number of
hypotheses were formulated, mainly from the biblical material referring to
this early period, but as we all know the historicity of this material is highly
contested. A dependence on Jerusalem or other centres was thus envisaged,
as was independence. Regarding the latter option,25 and lacking contempo-
rary written sources for this region, how can one tell whether or not addi-
tional, smaller polities have sprung up amid the principal ones? Whether or
not local warlords have seized power here and there for limited periods of
time?26 The speculative nature of the scenarios proposed (see note 10) is so
manifest that there is hardly a preference for any one of them over the oth-
ers.
In effect, the above gave me the impression that the debate about Qeiyafa’s
ethnic and political affiliation is currently adrift in over-interpretation, with no
25
Fantalkin 2008: 29; Lehmann and Niemann 2014: 77, and passim.
26
Such an entity could perhaps have been similar to some of the local Amarna-period
polities (I. Finkelstein’s suggestion). Turning to a potential 1st millennium parallel for
Qeiyafa, the ephemeral Azatiwata in the 8th century is quite illuminating: Without his
Luwian–Phoenician bilingual (Younger 2000; Hawkins 2005), who will have ascribed
the impressive new city of Karatepe–Azatiwataya to a short-lived, locally powerful ruler
and kingmaker within the larger kingdom of Adana?
102 BENJAMIN SASS
Fig. 10: Jerusalem. In grey the proposed extent of the town in the Late Bronze to Iron IIA
(Courtesy of Israel Finkelstein = Finkelstein, Koch and Lipschits 2011: 16).
consensus in sight. If we liken Qeiyafa to a lemon, several colleagues attempt-

ed to squeeze out of it more juice than it could possibly have held originally.
But rather than ending the paper on this gloomy note, I opt for once to join the
speculation, deplored only a few paragraphs back. Yet in this most recent addi-
tion to the multitude of scenarios for Qeiyafa’s affiliation I assert that mine is
as unverifiable as the rest.
A dating in the Iron I–II transition, the mid 10th century, assuming the al-
phabet has just begun its move out of Philistia then (see “Relative dating…”
above), could just make a Jerusalem link and Judahite Hebrew language possi-
ble for the ostracon. On such a background Qeiyafa may even be considered
Davidic – in case one is willing (as noted above) to locate King David’s reign
about the mid 10th century. With the oval plan of its casemate wall crowning a
summit, Qeiyafa could be assumed to emulate Jerusalem. For who can assert
that under David ‘the mound on the mount’ (Finkelstein, Koch and Lipschits
2011: 3, 16), was not similarly fortified? In Figs. 9–10 at any rate, the two sites
Fig. 11: Qeiyafa limestone ark (courtesy of the Qeiyafa expedition, photo Gabi Laron).
look remarkably similar in outline, or in fact like any other hilly site.27 Accord-
ing to this scenario Yosef Garfinkel may have his wish after all, if perhaps not
in the manner he wished for.
Excursus. Two Notes on the Limestone Ark from Khirbet Qeiyafa and
Its Lintel
1. The Material – Limestone

While terracotta arks or model shrines of the 2nd and 1st millennia are common
in the southern Levant, the object in question (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013;
Fig. 11 herein) is unique in both its material and design, certainly in the 10th
27
Even while Qeiyafa at 2.3 hectares (Garfinkel and Ganor 2009: 25) is about half the size
of that conjectured for Jerusalem in Finkelstein, Koch and Lipschits 2011: 8.
104 BENJAMIN SASS
century – the Iron I–II transition. All the same, the occasional limestone variant
may be encountered amongst more or less contemporary items otherwise
known in fired clay. What comes to mind are the three limestone stands from
Megiddo – the beautifully carved and painted one from Schumacher’s excava-
tion (Mutesellim I: frontispiece) and two from Chicago’s Stratum V (Megiddo
II: Pl. 254: 3–4). Likewise the limestone stand from Tel Amal (Levy and Edel-
stein 1972: Pl. 21). But the Qeiyafa ark is even more special in its early date,
the Megiddo and Tel Amal items originating in later Iron IIA contexts.
2. The Lintel
The Qeiyafa ark stands out with its recessed doorframe and row of rectangular
elements at the bottom of the lintel. The best parallel for the ark’s front, dis-
playing both features, is the façade of a rock-cut tomb in Tamassos in Cyprus,
yet the Qeiyafa ark is some three centuries older (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu
2013: 148). The recessed frames have a long Near Eastern history, beginning
in the 5th millennium (ibid.: 144–149), but where had the rectangular elements
underneath the lintel originated? Rather than triglyphs (loc. cit.) the Qeiyafa
device may be a forerunner of the Greek mutules, or else a misunderstood
combination of both. Such mutules are found in Egypt since at least the Middle
Kingdom – at the nomarchs’ tombs of Beni Hassan and Deir er-Rifeh (Beni
Hasan I: 52 and Pl. 22 top left;28 Pillet 1934: 66–70;29 Badawy 1966: 133–134,
150–151; Shedid 1994: 5; Figs. 12–13 herein). More specialist work on the
Qeiyafa feature is needed, and on the option of an ultimately Egyptian proto-
type. If this is eventually confirmed, the Fortleben of the mutules after the
Middle kingdom in their homeland and beyond, prior to the Classical period in
Greece, will have to be examined. It should be remembered that other 2nd mil-
lennium Egyptian creations were emulated in the Middle and Late Bronze Age
Levant and Cyprus, and their manufacture continued into the Iron Age.30 An
Iron Age adoption of the Qeiyafa trait directly from Third Intermediate Period
Egypt may alternatively be investigated (compare Gubel 2008; 2009).31
28
“Above the architrave and upheld by a narrow extension of the same pilasters there is a
ledge of rock, somewhat resembling a cornice, the soffit of which is sculptured with
false rafter-ends, laid flat but rounded below, and corresponding to the mutules of the
Doric order” (Beni Hasan I: 52).
29
“L’architrave représente le portant de bois, qui lie les colonnes entre elles, les triglyphes
sont les abouts des poutres plafonnantes et l’extrémité des chevrons devient des mu-
tules” (Pillet 1934: 66).
30
Such was the case for instance with the Late Bronze Age antecedents of the gadrooned
bowls in the Iron Age and Persian period. On the Iron IIA Kefar Veradim bowl and its
Late Bronze prototypes see Alexandre 2002: 72; Sass 2005b: 38, 183. For a further Late
Bronze specimen, from Alassa in Cyprus, see Hadjisavvas 2006: 452, no. 159.
31
In addition, there are mutule-like devices on South Arabian buildings, architectural
models, steles and various objects of the 8th–7th centuries, perhaps 9th–7th (e.g. Simpson
2002: 55, 149, 162, 164, 169).
Fig. 12: Beni Hassan Tomb 3 (Badawy 1966: Pl. 14).
Fig. 13: Deir er-Rifeh tomb (Pillet 1938: 70).

106 BENJAMIN SASS
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Khirbet Qeiyafa – A View from Tel Kinrot
in the Eastern Lower Galilee
Stefan MÜNGER
This paper reviews selected aspects of the material culture unearthed at Khirbet
Qeiyafa in the Shefelah through the lens of the Early Iron Age finds and find-
ings from Tel Kinrot on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Though
the two sites not only differ in geographic location, cultural affiliation, a slight
chronological shift and many other aspects of their respective material culture,
they nevertheless share common features1 characteristic for the oscillating and
yet to be further studied and explored transition period from the end of the Iron
Age I to the Iron Age IIA at the turn from the 2nd to the first 1st millennium
BCE. 2
Early Iron Tel Kinrot – A Short Portrait
Tel Kinrot is a medium sized site located in the Eastern Lower Galilee. The
small, two-staged Tell (Fig. 1),3 covering an area of slightly less than 1 hectare,
is sitting atop a limestone foothill that quite steeply slopes down southeast-
wards towards the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. However, the characteristic
Tell-formation represents only the acropolis (or upper town) of the buried cities
of ancient Kinneret. During the Middle Bronze Age IIB/Late Bronze I (ca.
1750–1400 BCE) and throughout the Iron Age IB (ca. 1050–950 BCE) the
fortified settlements also covered the slopes of the hill, comprising a walled
1
In the following, only a selection of characteristics shared by Khirbet Qeiyafa and Tel
Kinrot are presented, which both do not concur with the respective chapters in archaeo-
logical schoolbooks. On the shrine models found at both sites, cf. Schroer, infra.
2
On the absolute dating of the Iron Age I | II transition, cf. Sharon, Gilboa, Jull et al.
2007; Mazar and Bronk Ramsey 2008; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2010; Finkelstein and
Piasetzky 2011; Mazar 2011; Toffolo, Arie, Martin et al. 2014; on the 14C dating of the
Iron Age settlement at Khirbet Qeiyafa, cf. Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2015; Garfinkel,
Streit, Ganor et al. 2015; on Khirbet Qeiyafa’s relative date and the characterization of
it’s material culture, see esp. Singer-Avitz 2010, 2012 and 2016 (for counter arguments
see Kang 2015). Note that the chronological implications drawn by Klingbeil based on
some glyptic finds (2016: 279 and esp. note 7) are not solid since the material in ques-
tion is – in relative chronological terms – either considerably earlier than Khirbet
Qeiyafa, Stratum IV (Nos. 1–3) or comes from a mixed context below topsoil (No. 4).
On the radiometric data of Early Iron Age Tel Kinrot, see below page 120 note 36.
3
The smaller Tell sitting atop of the western part of the actual Tell, thus the above desig-
nation as ‘two-staged’, might well have led to the later Arabic name Tell el-‛Orēme,
meaning the ‘mound of the (small) heap’.
114 STEFAN MÜNGER
Fig. 1: Aerial View on the ‘Acropolis’ of Tel Kinrot from the North (photograph by Pascal
Partouche, Skyview Photography Ltd).
area of at least 7.2 hectares in size, of which ca. 5.7 hectares are accessible for
archaeological exploration.4 The remaining southern area of the site is occupied
by the Sapir Site, a pumping station operated by Mekorot, Israel’s national
water company.
1. Abridged History of Exploration

Early, rather modest excavations by German teams in 1909–1911 and 1932–
1939 provided only limited archaeological data.5 The first systematic investiga-
tions from 1982–1985 were directed by Volkmar Fritz (Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz) and resulted inter alia in the discovery of a walled fortress
town dating to the Iron IIB period (Fritz 1990; but see also Winn and Yakar
1984). In this phase, excavations were undertaken mainly on the site’s summit
(Fig. 2; Areas A, B, C, D and E). In a second archaeological expedition, Fritz
focused from 1994–2001 (now on behalf of the German Protestant Institute of
Archaeology in Jerusalem and the Justus Liebig University Giessen, respec-
tively) on the material remains on the southeastern slope, not only by exposing
4
It should be noted that the Early Bronze I-II habitation covered an area beyond the later
fortification lines (Winn and Yakar 1984). The exact extension of these settlements is
yet unknown.
5
For a summary and an interpretation see Fritz 1978.
KHIRBET QEIYAFA – A VIEW FROM TEL KINROT IN THE EASTERN LOWER GALILEE 115
Fig. 2: General plan of excavations (compiled by Susanne Rutishauser).

116 STEFAN MÜNGER
large areas with exceptionally well preserved Iron Age I architecture, but also
by penetrating into earlier settlement layers (Fig. 2; Areas F, G, H, J, K, L, M,
N, Q, R, S and T), which allowed a sound assessment of the settlement se-
quence present at the site (Fritz and Vieweger 1996; Fritz 1999; Fritz and
Münger 2002). The thus far last campaigns at Tel Kinrot were undertaken by
Kinneret Regional Project, an international consortium (by then) under the
auspices of the Universities of Bern, Helsinki and Leiden and in cooperation
with the University of Mainz. Fieldwork – directed by Juha Pakkala (Helsinki),
Jürgen Zangenberg (Tilburg and later Leiden) and the present author – lasted
so far for five seasons during the years 2003–2005 and 2007–2008.6 Future
expeditions are planned.
Excavated m2 Seasons % of accessible area7 m2 per season

Fritz expedition 1982-1985 3550 m2 4 7.0% 887.5 m2
2
Fritz expedition 1994-2001 2780 m 7 5.5% 397.1 m2
Fritz expedition (total) 6330 m2 11 12.5% 575.5 m2
Kinneret Regional Project 600 m2 5 1.2% 120.0 m2
Tel Kinrot (Fritz + KRP) 6930 m2 16 13.7% 433.1 m2
8 2
Khirbet Qeiyafa 5000 m 7 21.7% 642.8 m2
Table 1: Exposed excavation areas at Tel Kinrot compared to Khirbet Qeiyafa.
While horizontal exposure of archaeological remains under the direction of

Volkmar Fritz during the 1980ies was exceptionally high – to say the least,
invasive fieldwork was reduced by more than half during his second series of
excavations. During the campaigns of Kinneret Regional Project, horizontal
exposure eventually decreased to less than 10% of what was previously un-
earthed by the first Fritz expedition. The reason for this was Kinneret Regional
Project’s aim to target mainly unexcavated baulks (mostly in Field I) and to
avoid the opening of new excavation squares, unless crucial for the understand-
ing of the Iron Age I and earlier settlement layers (see Table 1). The excavation
of still standing baulks proved to be especially fruitful since it allowed reexam-
ining and refining Fritz’s stratigraphy without damaging further parts of the
still buried rich material culture, especially the one of the Early Iron Age.9
6
During those five seasons, approximately 335 persons joined the excavations. The staff-
/team-member ratio was ca. 1:2 in average.
7
I.e., within the walled perimeter of the Iron Age settlement(s) that is accessible for ex-
cavation.
8
Figures according to Garfinkel, supra pages 11–16; based on Fig. 5 (ibid., page 10) the
excavated area at Khirbet Qeiyafa is more likely ca. 4500 m2; for a critical review of the
applied field methods, cf. Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012: 39–41.
9
Note that of the ca. 990 pottery items – many of which were partly or fully restored – to
be published in the forthcoming final reports covering the seasons 1994–2008, ca. 690
2. The ‘Prehistory’ of Early Iron Age Tel Kinrot – From the Neolithic to the
Late Bronze Age
The first human activities attested at Tel Kinrot date to the (Pottery) Neolithic
period (8300/5500–4500 BCE) represented by flint tools – some of which are
comparable to the Pottery Neolithic Jericho IX industry – and ground stone
artifacts found ex situ (Karge 1917: 172–177; Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily, pers.
comm.). Apart from flint and stone tools, isolated pottery items dating to the
Chalcolithic period (4500–3300 BCE) were found in pockets above virgin soil
or as stray finds (esp. in Areas G and R3). The first coherent architecture is
dated to the Early Bronze Age II (3000–2700 BCE) by small assemblages of
restorable pottery (e.g., Fritz and Vieweger 1996: 94–96 with Fig. 5: 1–4, see
also the stray finds published in Pakkala, Münger and Zangenberg 2004: 13
with Fig. 5).10 After a gap of several hundred years, settlement activity started
again sometime during the late Middle Bronze Age IIB and continued through-
out the Late Bronze Age I. During this time, the town is characterized by mas-
sive defense systems including a multi-phased glacis.11 Only little is known
about the city’s (domestic) architecture of this period and no coherent house
plans have yet been unearthed (but see, e.g., Fritz and Münger 2002: 8–11).
Nevertheless, Late Bronze Age Kinneret must have been a prominent Canaan-
ite city-state since it is quite prominently mentioned in contemporary Egyptian
sources (Münger 2013: 150 note 7). One of those sources is Papyrus Hermitage
1116A verso (pHerm 1116A), which dates from the time of Amenhotep II
(1428–1397 BCE).12
This document is of peculiar interest, since it elucidates the political position ancient Kinneret at
the close of the 15th c. BCE quite well. In the form of two receipts/lists, it mentions the provision-
ing of representatives from Djahy, i.e. the region of Palestine (and adjacent areas) with beer and
corn.13 Apart from k-n-n-r-t14 (Kinneret), the envoys are said to come from ‛-[s]-k-r-n (Ash-
kelon)15 in the Southern coastal plain, from m-k-t (Megiddo),16 [š]-m-r-n (Shimron/Shim‛on [i.e.
come from the Fritz expedition and ca. 300 were retrieved by Kinneret Regional Project.
These figures are highly disproportionate vis-à-vis the amount of excavated square me-
ters exposed by the respective excavation teams. Also, work on the micro-stratigraphy
of the Early Iron Age remains profited greatly of the much slower excavation pace of
Kinneret Regional Project.
10
The otherwise attested Early Bronze Age I wares from the end of the 4th millennium
BCE found ex situ could not yet be associated with architectural units.
11
Cf. Fritz 1999: 95–98; Fritz and Münger 2002: 8–11.
12
Possibly from his 19th or 20th regnal year, cf. der Manuelian 1987: 12–15 with earlier
literature.
13
For a general overview cf. Amir 1963; Epstein 1963; Weippert 2010: 122–124.
14
This and the following transliterations are based on Epstein 1963: 50.
15
Tell el-Ḥaḍra; the site is mentioned in EA 287, 320–322, 370; cf. Moran 1992: 327–
330.350–351.367.
16
Tell el-Mutesellim in the Jezreel valley; the site is mentioned in EA 234, 242–245; cf.
Moran 1992: 292–300.
118 STEFAN MÜNGER
Shamkhuna])17 and [t]-e-n-k (Ta‛anach)18 in the Jezreel valley, from‛-k-s-p (Achshaph),19 in the
Acco plain, from [m]-š-ỉ-r (Mishal)20 in the Haifa bay and from ḥ-[ḏ]-r (Hazor) in the Huleh
valley21. Sites from Northern Transjordan mentioned are š-r-n (Sharon, i.e. Sharuna) located
somewhere in the Southern Bashan22 and h-t-m (Ham?)23 in Gilead. The last site mentioned, t-n-n
(Teneni/Tenni), should be searched somewhere in Northern Palestine or in Southern Syria.24
Though the purpose of the travel of these noble men is not mentioned, it is almost certain that
they were bringing tribute to royal estate.25 As they are explicitly called maryannu (i.e. members
of a chariot-warrior aristocracy26), one must assume that they had a certain standing even at the
Egyptian court and were considered as honorable representatives of important Canaanite city-
states.
The geographical scope of pHerm 1116A is evident. All envoys came from
towns or cities located in Northern Palestine (except for the representative of
Ashkelon, who might have joined the party along the way) and although some
of the sites are located quite close to each other, there is no doubt that each
envoy represented his own political entity located in the northern plains of Cis-
and Transjordan. Thus, Kinneret was firmly embedded in a socio-political
landscape of city-states that dotted the political map of Palestine under the
Egyptian hegemony. Merely three generations later, this changed dramatically.
Based on archaeological evidence, ancient Kinneret must have been desert-
ed sometime at the very beginning of the 14th c. BCE, i.e. the first decades of
the Late Bronze Age II period, since ceramic hallmarks, like, e.g., imported
Mycenaean IIIA-B ceramics or Cypriot products, such as Base-ring II, hand-
made Bucchero or Knife-shaved wares are lacking completely in the material
record.27 This corresponds well to the silence about ancient Kinneret in the
17
Tel Shimron in the Jezreel valley; the site is mentioned in EA 225; cf. Moran 1992: 288.
According to petrographic analysis, this letter by Šum-Adda was sent from the Egyptian
administrative center at Beth-Shean and not from Shimron/Shim‛on itself; thus the local-
ization of this site cannot be petrographically confirmed, cf. Goren, Finkelstein and
Na’aman 2004: 233–237 with earlier literature.
18
Tell Ta‛annēk in the Jezreel valley; the site is mentioned in EA 248; cf. Moran 1992:
301–302.
19
Tell Keisan in the Acco plain; the site is mentioned in EA 366–367; cf. Moran 1992:
364–365. EA 223 (cf. Moran 1992: 287) possibly also originated from this site, cf.
Goren et al. 2004: 231–233.
20
Tell en-Naḥl; the site is not mentioned in the el-Amarna correspondence.
21
Tell el-Qedaḥ; the site is mentioned in EA 148, 227–228 and 364, cf. Moran 1992: 288–
290.362.
22
The localization of Sharuna, mentioned in EA 241 (cf. Moran 1992: 296), in the Bashan
area is corroborated by petrographic evidence, cf. Goren et al. 2004: 220–225.
23
Tell Ham; for a short discussion on this localization cf. Epstein 1963: 54–55 with earlier
literature.
24
See the discussion in Na’aman 2005: 161–162; Teneni/Tenni is mentioned in EA 260;
cf. Moran 1992: 311.
25
Cf., e.g., Na’aman 2005: 161 or Weippert 2010: 122.
26
For a short characterization cf. Lemche 1991: 43–44 and Wilhelm 1990; on the status of
the maryannu in Ugarit see Heltzer 1982: 111–115.
27
Fritz and Münger 2002: 10–11. One of the latest imports within the Late Bronze Age
ceramic assemblage is a so-called ‘Black Lustrous Wheel Made Ware’ juglet found on a
Amarna correspondence,28 where most of the city-states listed in pHerm 1116

are still mentioned.29
Three centuries later – towards the middle years of the 11th c. BCE – the
site was resettled and eventually grew to become one of the most important
urban centers in the greater region at the close of the 2nd millennium BCE.
During this period, former nearby major centers like Kamid el-Loz (ancient
Kumidi) in the Beqaa valley or Hazor in the Hula valley to the north,30 Tel
Yin’am (Biblical Jabneel) or Tel Rekhesh, i.e. Anaharath prominently men-
tioned in some Egyptian documents,31 in the Lower Galilee to the south,32 or
Tell ‛Ashtarah (ancient Ashtarot) in the Bashan to the east,33 long had lost their
power and fell – in some cases – almost into inexistence.34
3. Tel Kinrot During the Early Iron Age

On this background, the rise of such a large settlement like Tel Kinrot, and its
satellite Tel Hadar on the north-eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee,35 sometime
floor belonging to Stratum VII in Area H (for this group see Yannai, Gorzalczany and
Peilstöcker 2003: 110 with Fig. 3.3; Yannai 2007; Gorzalczany and Yannai 2007). It
should be noted that this ware normally predates the import of Cypriot Base Ring I ce-
ramics, which have not been identified at Tel Kinrot yet (Yannai 2007: 317).
28
The toponym knrt appearing in the contemporary ‛Aqhatu legend (KTU 1.19:III:41)
refers to the general region and not to the site itself (Münger 2013: 150 with further lit-
erature).
29
See notes 15–23 above. Note, however, the scarab bearing the horizontal inscription ḥmt
nswt Tjj ‘Royal consort Tiyi’ that was found on the surface at Tel Kinrot (Mader 1930:
Pl. 4:4; Hübner 1986: 264, Fig. 1; Lalkin 2008: Pl. 43:753; for parallels cf. Keel 2010:
420–421, Der el–Balah No. 47 with further literature). Tiyi was the wife of Amenhotep
III (1390–1353 BCE), who lived until after the 8th regnal year of her son Amenhotep
IV/Akhenaten (1353–1336 BCE; cf. Schmitz 1986: 305). Since no contemporary finds
other than this scarab have been identified yet at Tel Kinrot, one must assume that the
stamp-seal amulet has been deposited at the site at a considerably later time.
30
For the rather modest Early Iron Age remains of the unwalled settlement at Kamid el-
Loz, cf., e.g., Heinz, Kulemann-Ossen, Linke et al. 2006: 88–90; Heinz 2009: 117;
Heinz 2010: 28–72 (passim); for Hazor in the Iron Age I, cf., e.g., Ben-Ami 2001; Ben-
Ami 2006; Ben-Ami and Ben-Tor 2012.
31
Na’aman 2005: 165.
32
For Tel Yin‛am cf., e.g., Liebowitz 1993; Liebowitz 1997; Liebowitz 2003; for Tel
Rekhesh, cf., e.g., Hasegawa 2010; Paz, Okita, Tsukimoto et al. 2010.
33
Abou-Assaf 1968; Abou-Assaf 1969.
34
Note that the only site in the aforementioned list, which grew during the Iron Age I is
Tel Rekhesh. The site’s current excavators note: “Although some of the structures of
Iron Age I Tel Rekesh may be somewhat smaller than the LB structures, it nevertheless
appears that occupation at the site reached its zenith during the latter period, when it
spread throughout the upper mound and ‘spilled over’ on the lower terrace, as may be
observed in the nature of buildings there, which are both residential and public in na-
ture.” (Paz et al. 2010: 38).
35
Cf., e.g., Kochavi 1998: 29; Fritz 2003: 18–19; Münger, Zangenberg and Pakkala 2011:
88.
120 STEFAN MÜNGER
after the collapse of the Late Bronze Age polities, must be viewed as asyn-
chronous and calls for special attention. Although the Early Iron Age settle-
ment at Tel Kinrot probably did not last more than a century (ca. 1050–950
BCE),36 this settlement phase certainly marks one of the most important hey-
days of the site, which never recovered to its former grandeur in the later peri-
ods.
The Early Iron Age town at Tel Kinrot stands out from most other contem-
porary settlements in various aspects, such as the remarkably high degree of
town-planning (see below) or the internal socio-economic structure with vari-
ous small-scale industries, like olive oil production, tanning or milling and
baking beyond regular household needs. Also, the quality of construction and
size of the individual buildings is outstanding. These large domestic units or
complexes, that were organized as insulae within the city, follow building
traditions that most probably had their origins within the Syrian realm (Münger
2013: 151–154). At times, they easily could have housed up to 35 adults,
enough space for an extended family, including slaves and servants (Fig. 3). As
exemplified by ‘Complex 1’ in Field I in the lower most part of the southeast-
ern slope, such large structures were clearly pre-planned and constructed in one
building operation. On the other hand, there is also evidence for a continuous
extension of a previously defined building plot. According to B. Schöneweiß-
Mehring (Kinneret Regional Project’s advisor in structural engineering), Com-
plex 4 in Field II, built between two massive terraces, shows at least 6 con-
structional phases that document not only an increase in population but also
impressively mirror the densification of the building ground in the settlement
development during the main phase of the Early Iron Age horizon at Tel Kinrot
(Fig. 4).
The material culture that parallels the famous Megiddo Stratum VIA horizon is
a vivid blend of indigenous Canaanite traditions (Fritz 2000) with various cul-
tural influences from neighboring regions (Münger, Zangenberg and Pakkala
2011), of which the Northern traditions are most outstanding (Münger
36
The founding phase of Early Iron Age Kinneret (Stratum VI) is not yet fully established,
since only one 14C-date of an olive pit retrieved from this phase is available. It places the
initial stages of the Iron Age I settlement in the middle years of the 11th century BCE
(Fritz and Münger 2002: 12). Radiometric dating of organic material from bricks used to
build a large complex of the main phase of the Early Iron Age horizon (Stratum V) sug-
gests a construction date in the second half of the 11th c. BCE (Dr. Elisabetta Boaretto,
pers. comm.). Unfortunately, no 14C-dates are available for its terminal phase. However,
a scarab of the late 21st/early 22nd Egyptian dynasty found on a floor of that same build-
ing suggests a final date around 980/960 BCE (Münger 2007: 93–95 No. 8). After the
devastation of the main Iron Age IB settlement the site was re-settled for a brief duration
only. Since – apart from minute changes in cooking wares – the material culture is the
same as the previous one. This ‘squatter habitation’ thus cannot have lasted for long.
Therefore, a timeframe for Early Iron Age Tel Kinrot from ca. 1050 to ca. 950 BCE is
suggested.
Fig. 3: Schematic plan of Complexes 1 and 4 (by Bärbel Schöneweiß-Mehring,

Vöhl-Obernburg).
2013). They are traceable in architectural styles (see above), locally produced
ceramics with a morphology foreign to the contemporary pottery corpus of Cis-
and Transjordan (Münger 2005: 86–87; Münger 2013: 154–161), cultic objects
(Nissinen and Münger 2009; Berkheij-Dol 2012) or mortuary practices
(Münger 2012; Münger 2013: 161–163). On the other hand, economic ties with
the early Phoenician culture were seemingly important as well, as evidenced by
the significant amount of a variety of small imported containers, such as, e.g.,
the typical bichrome flasks and jugs and others (Fritz 1998: Fig. 11; Pakkala et
al. 2004: Fig. 11,2; Namdar, Gilboa, Neumann et al. 2013). Finally, supra-
regional exchange of goods is, e.g., attested by noteworthy amounts of Lates
niloticus (Nile perch; Thomsen 2011; Thomsen in Münger et al. 2011: 79),
122 STEFAN MÜNGER
Fig. 4: The development of Complex 4 (by Bärbel Schöneweiß-Mehring, Vöhl-Obernburg).
stamp-seal amulets (Münger 2007) and other Egyptian artifacts (e.g., Fritz and
Münger 2002: 19 with Fig. 10,4) or some rare items alluding to the ‘Philistine’
material culture (Dietrich and Münger 2001: 59 with Fig. 3; Dietrich and
Münger 2003: 44; Fassbeck, Münger and Röhl 2003: 47–49; Fassbeck 2008).
In sum, it is evident that ancient Kinneret at the dawn of the 1st millennium
BCE reflects a highly organized and complex society with broad interregional
socio-economic ties that dominated at times the region on the Sea of Galilee,
independent of the by then incipient if not even embryonic kingdoms and terri-
torial entities in the Southern Levant.
Khirbet Qeiyafa Through the Lens of Early Iron Age Tel Kinrot
Obviously, comparing Tel Kinrot with Khirbet Qeiyafa is somewhat similar to

comparing apples to oranges. Their regional setting, territorial association of
whatever nature or socio-economic organization is very different to each other.
In the following, however, some selected features of Khirbet Qeiyafa, Stratum
IV – highlighted by its excavator Yossi Garfinkel (supra) – shall briefly be
reviewed in light of the material culture of the almost contemporary site of Tel
Kinrot.
4. Settlement Layout and Fortifications

Like Tel Kinrot, Khirbet Qeiyafa was fortified, which is an unusual feature
during the late Iron Age IB and early Iron Age IIA. Only a few walled settle-
ments are known from that period, some of which were fortified with a solid
wall – like the northern sites of Tel Kinrot, Tel Hadar, the Philistine cities in
the Southern coastal plain or Tell el-Fukhar in Jordan (Münger 2013: 151) –
while others – like Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, Tell en-Naṣbe or
Tell el-‛Umeiri and other sites on the Transjordanian Plateau (Finkelstein and
Fantalkin 2012: 42–43) – had a casemate(-like) defense wall. Besides the very
different constructional features of the fortifications of Tel Kinrot and Khirbet
Qeiyafa, respectively, it should be noted that unlike at Tel Kinrot, Khirbet
Qeiyafa’s defense system is not founded on an earlier city wall, as suggested
by Rami Arav (2011: 93–94; for the counter-arguments of the excavators, cf.
Garfinkel, Kreimerman and Zilberg 2016: 122). Furthermore, it is obvious that
also at Khirbet Qeiyafa a central authority of whatever nature must have initi-
ated the well planned layout of the settlement’s defense system that predeter-
mined the arrangement and organization of its internal layout, including the
arrangement of the gates where the openings of casemates change their posi-
tion (Garfinkel, supra 10 with Fig. 5). However, whether this was a regional
power, as suggested by Yossi Garfinkel (supra page 44–47) cannot be deter-
mined by the very fact that Qeiyafa’s defense system was pre-planned and well
organized. As exemplified by Tel Kinrot it is well conceivable that also an
independent local elite was able to conduct such highly organized and exten-
sive building operations.
As for the organization of the walled settlement area, there are obviously
great differences between Khirbet Qeiyafa and Tel Kinrot. While the former
follows the concept of a well structured fortification system with a peripheral
124 STEFAN MÜNGER
Fig. 5: The Lower City at Tel Kinrot, Stratum V (Münger 2013: Fig. 3).
Fig. 6: 3D reconstruction of Complex I, direction northwest (artwork by Christa Lennert,

Mainz).
belt of abutting, non-standardized houses – a model that may well be rooted in

the so-called ‛enclosed settlement’ which developed during the Iron Age I, e.g.,
in the Beersheba Valley (Herzog 1983; Herzog 1994) but also occurs at north-
ern sites like ‛Izbet Ṣartah, Stratum III and other places (Finkelstein 1988:
238–263) –, the latter shows a much higher degree of town planning, including
massive terrace walls across several plots to allow even building ground or an
orthogonal street system, sometimes with embedded channels (Fig. 5).
5. Domestic Houses
In stark contrast to the deliberate and uniform arrangement of the casemates
are the layouts of the abutting houses at Khirbet Qeiyafa. Their ground plan is
irregular and does not follow common standards, like, e.g., at the slightly later
Judahite site of Beersheba, Stratum II and even more so at Tell es-Sa‛idiyeh in
the Jordan Rift valley (Herzog 1997: Fig. 5.31 and 5.24; but see, e.g., Beit
Mirsim, Stratum A, ibid. Fig. 5.29). Judged from the published plans (e.g.,
Garfinkel, supra Fig. 29, Garfinkel, Ganor and Hasel 2014: Figs. 6.26, 7.50 or
8.68), the rather modest width (and quality) of the walls (except the outer
[casemate] walls) suggest that the buildings were only one-storied, since the
single-rowed stone foundations would not have been stable enough for the
126 STEFAN MÜNGER
addition of an upper story.37 According to the evidence from Area C at Khirbet

Qeiyafa (Garfinkel, supra Fig. 17) the floor plan area of the individual dwell-
ing compounds is between 180 and 330 m2, which corresponds to the size of
similar domestic units, e.g., at Khirbet Raddana north of modern Ramallah
(Lederman 1999). Such a size of the ground plan is considered suitable for the
accommodation of an extended or multiple families (Stager 1985: 18–23; note
however that Stager assumed second stories in order to provide enough living
space per capita). At Tel Kinrot, building complexes were of similar size
(Complex 1; ca. 250 m2) and larger (Complex 4; ca. 500 m2). They were, how-
ever, originally certainly two-storied and built along an akin base plan (Münger
2013: 153–154). Also, their inner organization followed a clearer structural
model than those of Khirbet Qeiyafa, with sophisticated ground floor and roof-
top access ways (Fig. 6).
6. Gates
To date, no entryways to the walled city have been exposed at Tel Kinrot.
However, a deep depression north of Area G (see Fig. 2) hints at a larger gate
complex that might have served as main access point to the Iron Age I city. If
and how many other openings in the city wall of ancient Kinneret – such as
secondary gates or posterns for pedestrian traffic – existed that facilitated at
times, e.g., access to the spring of ‛Ain et-Tīne close to the foot of the Tell, the
anchoring places on the lake shore, industrial areas extra muros or nearby
farmlands,38 is beyond present knowledge.39 If indeed such passage ways along
the fortification line – which assumedly measured more than 1025 m – existed,
they must have been narrow (and thus easier to block) and very sparse, since
the economic investment for guards and patrols certainly would have been
unreasonably higher than the actual profit of direct access ways to the outside
of the city.40 The same must also apply for the situation at Khirbet Qeiyafa. Are
two simultaneously used, almost identical gates (Garfinkel, supra Figs. 13 and
15) located at a linear distance of only 140 meters from each other (ibid., Fig.
5) economically really reasonable? Although the two gates almost perfectly fit
in the layout and orientation of the casemate rooms,41 which predefined the
37
Obviously the large building in Area A is built in a completely different quality and
technique, see Garfinkel, supra Fig. 6 and page 23.
38
For the finds and findings in the vicinity of Tel Kinrot, cf., e.g., Fritz 1978: passim;
Stepanski 2000.
39
A possible postern dating to the MBIIB/LB I was found in area Q, where the city wall is
12 m wide. It was, however, blocked already in a later phase of this settlement layer
(Dietrich, Knauf and Münger 1998). For contemporary posterns, see, e.g., Burke 2008:
71.
40
Needless to say that also the narrowest postern in a broad city wall always was a securi-
ty risk, especially in times of war and turmoil.
41
Note that the position of the opening of the casemates not only changes at the gates but
also within the pillared building in Area F (Garfinkel, supra page 23 with Figs. 5–6); it
Fig. 7: Storage jar with potter’s marks from main phase of the early Iron Age horizon at Tel
Kinrot (drawing by Christa Lennert, Mainz).
settlement layout, one still wonders if they indeed represent the same archaeo-
logical (sub)phase.42 It is not improbable that one of them was only built at a
later stage during the life span of Stratum IV at Khirbet Qeiyafa, while the
other one went out of use for unknown reasons. This is even more probable,
since two simultaneously used gates at a site of only 2.3 hectares and with a
topography like the one at Khirbet Qeiyafa are not at all imperative.
7. Marked Pots or Potter’s Marks

Besides urban planning, dietary patterns, epigraphic and linguistic peculiarities
and other ‘indicators’ for Khirbet Qeiyafa as being Judahite, Yossi Garfinkel
(supra page 43) also mentions nearly seven hundred impressed jar handles,
which – according to him – are a “typical Judean administrative device” (ibid.).
is not very likely that also this building was already part of the original town plan and
that its ground plan was anticipated by the builders of the defense system, who would
have rearranged the casemates intentionally in advance.
42
Even without necessarily questioning the gates’ general date and stratigraphic attribu-
tion, cf. Finkelstein and Fantalkin 2012: 44–46.
128 STEFAN MÜNGER
Fig. 8: Stamped seal-impressions on jar handles from Tel Kinrot (Münger 2008: Fig. 1).
This idea has recently been elaborated by Kang and Garfinkel (2015), who see
a “stylistic continuity between the Khirbet Qeiyafa vessels [with finger im-
pressed handles, SM] and the LMLK jars” (ibid. page 194) and state “that fin-
ger-impressed jars fulfilled an administrative function in the Iron Age IIA …
[and that they, SM] .. believe that this role was superseded by the advent of the
seal-impressed LMLK jar in the Iron Age IIB” (ibid. page 201).
This interpretation is not easily comprehensible. Not only because it con-
trasts the opinio communis that pre-firing marks – i.e. finger impressions or
incisions – point to utilitarian mechanisms in the manufacturing process,43 but
also because pre-firing marks do co-exist together with more sophisticated
markings such as seal-impressions. At Tel Kinrot, for example, single, double
and even triple (Fig. 7) finger-impressions are randomly found on Early Iron
Age storage jars. Parallel to those, a considerable amount of sealed jar handles
has been unearthed in the same contexts, some of which were made with the
43
In contrast incisions on vessels after their firing usually connote private ownership or ad
hoc labeling of contents or the like; see Wood 1990: 45–48; London 1991: 397–403;
Shoham 2000: 109–110; Hirschfeld 2008 and others.
same seal while others share the same motif but originate from different stamp-
seal amulets (Münger 2009; see also Fig. 8). Due to the more complex produc-
tion process that fairly alludes to exclusivity and possibly to a high social sta-
tus, it is probable that such impressions in fact indicated ownership and point
to some sort of organized economic system, where they probably were part of
an administrated distribution of goods.44 In contrast, in the present author’s
opinion the simple and unpretentious finger-impressions on jar handles should
be viewed as potters’s marks indicating the pooling of equipment – e.g., kilns –
during the production process.
The very high number of finger-impressed jar handles at Khirbet Qeiyafa
can easily be interpreted in the same way and does in no way necessarily need
to lead to the conclusion that those finger impressions “point to a centralized
administration in early Iron Age IIA Judah” (Kang and Garfinkel 2015: 202). If
they were ‘administrative’ indeed, such a simplistic system would certainly
only have worked on a local basis in a society under the direct rule of a local
chief or small elite.
Conclusion
Khirbet Qeiyafa with its splendid and significant finds and findings is a very
important site for the study of the early Iron Age IIA material culture and its
main excavator, Yossi Garfinkel, should be praised for the very timely publica-
tion of the archaeological data. However, Khirbet Qeiyafa does not stand alone
in the archaeological landscape and its material culture must continuously be
reflected and relativized by evidence from other sites that equally contribute to
the growing mosaic of information about the evolving (and interacting) cul-
tures at the turn of the 2nd to the 1st millennium BCE in the Southern Levant.
Acknowledgements
I thank Christa Lennert (Mainz), Dr. Susanne Rutishauser (University of Bern)

and Bärbel Schöneweiß-Mehring (Vöhl-Obernburg) for providing skillful illus-
trations and technical information. Nancy Rahn, Myriam Röthlisberger and
Katri Saarelainen assisted me in the preparation of the text and gave valuable
comments. Needless to say that all remaining errors and mistakes are entirely
my own.
44
For further examples see Münger 2009: 125 with note 54.
130 STEFAN MÜNGER
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The Iconography of the Shrine Models
of Khirbet Qeiyafa
Silvia SCHROER
Introduction
I had the pleasure of taking part in the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa as a

volunteer over three seasons, each time for two weeks.1 Among the ex-
ceptionally spectacular finds were two temple models, one made of limestone,
the other of clay, found at the end of the 2011 excavation season. By now an
article and a book have been published by Yossi Garfinkel and Madeleine
Mumcuoglu, in which particularly the extraordinary limestone model with its
remarkable front gate decoration is analyzed in its iconographic context and
also related to the Hebrew texts in 1 Kings that describe the palace and temple
of Solomon (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013; Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu
2015). In my article I will refer to these publications and also to Yossi Gar-
finkel’s discussion in this volume. Only recently and after the final redaction of
the present article an extensive study by Raz Kletter (Kletter 2015: 28–84)
concerning an interesting shrine model from Yavneh and the typology and
iconography of shrine models came to my knowledge. Unfortunately it was no
longer possible to take into account all of Kletter’s material or to enter into a
detailed discussion, but some footnotes and remarks have been added and the
number of illustrations was reduced in view of Kletter’s thorough data collec-
tion.2
In this contribution the clay temple model will be analyzed in more detail. It
is my thesis, which I may anticipate at this point, that small shrine models in
the Levant and Cyprus were mostly associated with goddesses and their cult. I
will support this conclusion through reference to the iconographic traditions. If
no figurine is found in a shrine with an open door, it certainly does not mean
that the shrine would have been empty. A small clay figurine or bronze image
could easily have been lost. The temple façade and its decoration often give
1
I had the opportunity to publish a 5th/4th century Phoenician seal found at the site togeth-
er with Patrick Wyssmann in the Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (Schroer
and Wyssmann 2012). The English version of this article will appear in the forthcoming
excavation report. The seal portrays a goddess on a lion, maybe Sekhmet, who is regu-
larly shown with a lion’s head. – On three locally made Early Iron Age seals found in
Stratum IV at Khirbet Qeiyafa see now also Schroer 2016.
2
There has been an increasing number of publications on shrine models, and not all of
them are referred to in this contribution, but see the standard publications by Bretschnei-
der 1991; Muller 2001 and 2002; Katz 2006.
138 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 1
iconographic clues that a shrine is dedicated to a goddess. Even if they are

represented in model form, they could have served cultic functions similar to
that of small chapels. The two shrine models were found not far apart in rooms
for which cultic activity has been confirmed (see Garfinkel in this volume,
page 35). I am quite sure that the small shrine made out of clay from Khirbet
Qeiyafa was associated with a goddess cult. But first a few remarks about the
limestone model.
The Limestone Shrine
The shrine model has a height of 35 cm, a width of 21 cm and a depth of 26 cm

(Fig. 1; Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2015: 53). It was broken and several pieces
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE SHRINE MODELS OF KHIRBET QEIYAFA 139
are missing, but the reconstruction is certain and

uncontested. It was made out of one single lime-
stone block. Traces of red paint have been pre-
served on the limestone walls. There are two holes,
or drilled perforations, in the rear wall, quite some
distance below mid-height. I will discuss their
function in more detail. In the doorframe are small
holes at about mid-height, which served to attach a
now missing, small door, probably made out of
wood. The model is truly unique. Exceptional for a
shrine model is its material – limestone, excep-
tional are the recessed, and thereby staggered,
doorframes, exceptional is the decorated frieze
above the door with its quadratic elements – prob-
ably seven originally, which Garfinkel has identi-
fied as triglyphs as they are known from the Doric
architecture of Greece.
Recessed doorframes not only indicate a luxu-
rious architectural style, but also create the percep-
tion of depth in a building, e.g., a temple or palace
with several consecutive rooms. The spatial depth
of the visible room is emphasized. In the case of a
temple the presence of the deity in the temple is
moved towards the back, so that the deity appears
further distant from the observer. A palace window
Fig. 2
with recessed frames makes the person in the win-
dow appear close and at the same time situated far
within the building, and therefore distant. Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu have
drawn together a considerable number of examples of Mesopotamian depic-
tions reaching back to the 3rd and 2nd millennium, in which recessed door-
frames indicate temple architecture. Egyptian depictions from the Old King-
dom could be added to these, e.g., the serekh vignettes,3 which indicate palace
façades, or the Hathor capitals known from Dynasty VI onwards that show the
uraeus in a portal with recessed frames (Fig. 2; Prisse d’Avennes 1878: Taf.
38). Surprisingly, recessed doorframes are almost unknown from the late 2nd or
early 1st millennia in Palestine/Israel or Syria, neither as a model (for one ex-
ception, see below) nor as an image. Only a stele from Hala Sultan Tekke, in
the region of Larnaca, which appears to show a door and above it two windows
of a temple or palace, is dated, but not with certainty, to the Late Bronze Age
(Fig. 3; Muller 2001: 148 Fig. 3a). After that the tradition of this motif breaks
off, at least as far as the known material tells us. Later on, recessed door and
3
See the examples in Schroer and Keel 2005: Nos. 115.117f. The serekh-sign does not
necessarily indicate gates, but maybe just recesses in the wall structure of the palace as
they appear from earliest times in Egyptian palace architecture.
140 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 3
window frames experienced a revival, especially in 9th century representations

of architecture, particularly from ivory art. In Syro-Phoenician ivory carvings
the motif of the woman in the window was popular. The window may be a
palace or a temple window. The high-ranking woman often is shown with a
sign on her forehead, which would associate her with a deity, probably a god-
dess. All these examples are dated considerably later than the shrine model
from Khirbet Qeiyafa. This is also true of some Cypriot objects in ivory and
the tomb architecture of Tamassos (Shiloh 1979: Pl. 18) with “real” recessed
entrances. The Doric architecture with its triglyphs4 is several centuries later
than the model from Khirbet Qeiyafa and at best can be taken as evidence for
the regional extent of the reception of certain motifs.
The material and form of the limestone model from Khirbet Qeiyafa are
unique when compared to other known shrine models.5 As Béatrice Muller
(2002: I 143–144) states, models from the Near East are practically always
made out of clay, though possibly versions made out of wood also existed.
Models from Egypt are made out of wood, stone or fired clay, those from
4
The thesis, that these triglyphs represent the ends of load-bearing beams, is not
uncontested (Weickenmeier 1985).
5
Kletter mentions a very small limestone naos from Gezer, dated to the Hellenistic period
by Macalister (1912: 439, Pl. 225,6), but possibly from the Iron Age. The proportions
and the form of the entrance show some, but not a strong similarity with the Khirbet
Qeiyafa shrine.
Fig. 4
Greece in their majority from clay, but some from stone as well.6 It is not only
unusual for a shrine model to be made out of limestone, but in this case its size
and proportions are also quite outstanding.
The limestone model from Khirbet Qeiyafa is approximately twice the size
of the clay model found nearby, which corresponds more to the average dimen-
sions of these objects. The depth of the model indicates that in the back part of
the shrine there probably was a standing, less likely a sitting, figurine of a dei-
ty. This is confirmed by the depression in the base near the back wall. The two
holes in the back wall were made so that the figurine could be secured with a
copper wire or a string. They would not have been needed to stabilize the
shrine itself, as it would have stood steady on a leveled surface. Similarly, the
clearly recognizable indentations in the door frame, to which a door could be
6
The Greek models with their typical ridge roofs will not be considered, partly due to
their late dates.
142 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 5
attached with the help of wooden sticks or a bolt, also suggest that the shrine
contained the image of a deity, which probably was made out of metal. A door
only makes sense if it can be closed and opened, because something or some-
one is on the inside. As part of the cult, the shrines or temples of gods were
closed or opened at specific times in set rituals. The limestone model therefore
insinuates a shrine or long-room temple.
Broad-room temples are more closely aligned with the rural population, as
Othmar Keel (2007: 289) points out, following Helga Weippert. In these less
elaborate building complexes the light coming from the entrance immediately
falls on the cult image and makes it visible. This effect is not desired for long-
room temples. The cult image remains in darkness, far from the entrance.7 The
limestone model from Khirbet Qeiyafa has a greater height than width and also
a greater depth than width, as well as rectangular and almost smooth surfaces.
This shape is reminiscent of the cultic shrines or small chapels that stood in
Egyptian temples, as shown e.g. in a depiction of Sethos I offering wine in
7
In case of the shrines which represent dwelling places for gods or goddesses, the type of
the temple room does not necessarily imitate an existing temple at a special place; the
shrines are not architectural models in the closer sense (Muller 2002: I 197–205). The
visual effect of Egyptian temple architecture with recessed entrances hiding the
sanctuary in the center or background of the temple can be experienced until today, e.g.
when entering the large temple of Ramses II. at Abu Simbel. Much later, from the
Roman period, is a relief from Meroë depicting recessed temple portals and a stela
depicting Osiris in the back (Keel 1997: Fig. 238).
Fig. 6
front of the Ptah chapel in Abydos (Fig. 4; Schroer 2011: No. 718), or the na-
os, which was carried by numerous so-called naophorous statues coming up
from the 18th dynasty on, in front of their bodies. In Byblos such shrines made
out of stone and containing small bronze figurines of gods were already known
from the Middle Bronze Age (Fig. 5; Bretschneider 1991: Taf. 134 Fig. 64).
The high shape of such a shrine is known from a clay model from the east-
ern yard of the Late Bronze temple of Kamid el-Loz (Kletter 2015: 35 Fig.
4.14 A13). A fluted lintel covers the high, rectangular entrance. Slender pilas-
ters are indicated. The door with the decorative lintel molding is typical for
Egyptian representations of shrines, as a wooden model from Deir el-Medineh,
19th dynasty (Fig. 6; Schroer 2007: 442 Fig. 24) illustrates. A model from Tell
Munbaqa in Syria (Kletter 2015: 49 Fig. 4.59 E1), probably from the Late
Bronze Age, is also relatively high (height 30 cm; width 24 cm; depth 20 cm)
and even though it otherwise has no decoration, it does have two rows of pas-
tille-like applications and there are traces of a fixture for a closing lid in the
entrance. A model from Hazor, Late Bronze Age (Kletter 2015: 49 Fig. 4.60
144 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 7
E2) of similar dimensions and a box-like shape (height 30 cm) could also be
closed by a small door.8
A further artifact, which has a similar entrance design as the limestone
model of Khirbet Qeiyafa and even may be from approximately the same time
period, is the limestone Iron Age IIA mold, supposed to come from the Gaza
area, currently in the Hecht Museum (Fig. 7; Mazar 1985: 12f No. 23 Fig. 20;
Bretschneider 1991: Taf. 89 Abb. 78 cat. No. 85; drawing by Myriam Röthlis-
berger). This mold was used to produce small plaques (the height of the mold
is 9.7 cm). It does not exhibit any triglyphs, but rather a typical Egyptian fluted
frieze, probably with uraeus snakes. Overall, it appears to imitate Egyptian
style. Clay plaques of this type have been found at other sites. In the entrance
there is always a goddess or a goddess with a worshiper.9
The Clay Shrine
The clay shrine (Fig. 8; Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2015: 110) was found not
far from the limestone shrine (Room G and Room H are part of Building C10)
and is approximately half the size with a height of 16 cm and a width of 11 cm.
In this case also, the reconstruction of the object is certain, even though some
8
The already mentioned shrine from Yavneh (Kletter 2015: Pl. 3,1–3 CS47) is made of
clay, not limestone and will be discussed below, though it roughly shares the box-like
shape with the Khirbet Qeiyafa limestone model.
9
Compare the Egyptian limestone object (from the antiquities market, New Kingdom)
with a naked goddess in the entrance portal shown in Keel 2008: No. 9, and one with the
goddess and a smaller devotee beside her (Keel and Schroer 32010: 182 Fig. 158a).
Fig. 8
pieces are missing. The height and depth are clearly less emphasized in com-
parison to the width. The material, fired clay, the shape and the decorative
elements or applications indicate that this model derives from Syrian and Le-
vantine traditions.
The core shape of the model is based on a spherical vessel. The base and
the walls were modified to make the house stable. A knob is attached at the
top, which may have served as a handle. The roof is slightly arched. On one
side the vessel is open and in front of this opening a gate portal with rich deco-
rations has been attached. Two pillars flank the entrance. They are offset from
the door towards the front, but are not free-standing. They are divided into
three parts by disc-like intermediate elements – ribbons, according to Gar-
finkel. On both pillars the lower element consists of three discs and the upper
of two. The pillars rest on bases, namely lion heads, though just one of them
has been preserved. Directly above the lintel a horizontal beam structure with a
total of three beams is recognizable. On it are two rows of round applications
with usually three notches. The lower row has four, the upper five of these
applications. More of these are also located on the left and right near the top of
both pillars. At the top of the façade are two additional beams or decorative
moldings. The upper one is decorated with notches, the other with a braided
pattern. Three doves sat originally on the ridge of the temple model, but they
are only partly preserved. The large holes to the left and right of the door open-
ing are quite noticeable. A small wooden or metal bar could have been inserted
here to hold the door. Even though a door is missing, it should be assumed that
146 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 9
it would have fitted exactly into the opening and would have been made out of
wood or clay, parallel to other objects, where such doors have been preserved.
A simple, painted broad-room house made out of clay is already known
from Early Bronze Arad (Kletter 2015: 30 Fig. 4.2). But a Late Bronze model
from Kamid el-Loz (Kletter 2015: 45 Fig. 4.48 D1) is more similar in its basic
shape. This, however, had two free-standing pillars, which were probably made
out of wood and have not been preserved. The extruding double ridge should
be noted.
In its shape the clay model from Khirbet Qeiyafa shows the influence of
vessel-like and hut-like models that were present in the whole Levant and in
Cyprus from the Late Bronze to the early Iron Ages. Sometimes they are de-
scribed as “beehive-shaped” or called “fenestrated clay vessels”. Already the
famous Middle Bronze calf from Ashkelon has a clay shrine, which seems like
a tall vessel with a small portal cut into its side (Kletter 2015: 34 Fig. 4.4 A1).
Several bulbous clay shrines have been found in Late Bronze contexts in Ka-
mid el-Loz and in Tell Deir Alla.10 Versions that have kept their jar shape to a
greater degree were produced in Ugarit (Kletter 2015: 35 Fig. 4.17–18 A17–
18) and in the Iron Age in Tel Dan, Tel Hadar and Tel Kinrot (Kletter 2015: 35
10
See the inventory of these and shrines from other places by Kletter 2015: 34 Fig. 4.5–13;
35 Fig. 4.15–21 and Zwickel 2015: 179 Fig. 14.1–8.
Fig. 10
Fig. 4.19–21).11 An object that has been published more frequently is the paint-
ed round model from Archanes on Crete from the 11th century. In its entrance
sits an enthroned goddess in epiphany gesture (Fig. 9; Orthmann 1975: Abb.
444; drawing by Inés Haselbach). Luckily in this case the door of the shrine
was preserved (Marinatos and Hirmer 1986: Pl. 144 door closed und Pl. 145
door open). The painting around the door opening might insinuate a recessed
frame, but this is speculative. The opening at the top, which can be traced back
to its vessel form, is used in this case by two devotees to peek inside. A model
from Transjordan dated to the 10th century has a round vessel form with a lid at
the top12 (Fig. 18 further below). Here we already meet the dove and two pil-
lars with palm capitals.
The characteristic rows of notched, round applications are known from the
older, Late Bronze, Syrian pottery stands.13 Whether these applications were
11
Compare Nissinen and Münger 2009. From Tell Zera comes an undecorated shrine of
this type found in an Iron Age I domestic context, which was made from a bulbous
vessel with handles by cutting a door into its side (Gropp 2013: 439 TZ 005552–001,
005552–010 and 005552–014). Through the use of an additional handle, the door could
be easily removed and put in place again. Hut-like models are known from the Graeco-
Cypriot realm, e.g., from the Astarte temple in Kition, dating approximately to 1000
BCE (Karageorghis 1976: Pl. 66–67; Bretschneider 1991: Fig. 66–67).
12
Kletter 2015: 45 Fig. 4.53 D9, in the Rockefeller Museum.
13
Muller 2002: II 90 Fig. 83 (a house model from Emar), II 125–127 Fig. 116–118 (cult
stands from Munbaqa).
148 SILVIA SCHROER
meant to imitate the ends of roof beams is uncertain or under discussion. On

some stands they are placed close together above the window openings (Fig.
10; Muller 2002: 97 Fig. 88 from Tell Fray, 13th century BCE), so that an in-
terpretation as beams seems unlikely. Braided or plait patterns indicate a con-
nection with textiles, such as headwear, blankets or maybe curtains.14
From the Early Iron Age onwards, small shrines are sometimes decorated
with lion protomes, birds and human figures. But these objects generally do not
come from excavations, so that the dating is comparative and style-orientated.
Nevertheless, there exists a consensus on the dating. No such model was so far
known from Judah. The following should be mentioned, because they share
features with the Khirbet Qeiyafa clay shrine.15
The above mentioned shrine from Transjordan, belonging to the Rockefel-
ler Museum, resembles the Khirbet Qeiyafa clay shrine in its composition,
based on a round vessel with a fronton attached to it (Fig. 11; Muller 2002: 200
Fig. 180b.180d; Kletter 2015: 45 Fig. 4.53 D9). The entrance is flanked by
pillars with volute capitals, the pillars being detached from the shrine, though
not free standing. In the tympanum a dove with spread wings is sitting. This
model should be considered as contemporaneous to the Khirbet Qeiyafa shrine.
A shrine model in Beirut (Fig. 12; Bretschneider 1991: Taf. 84 Abb. 73a-b No.
78; Kletter 2015: 46 Fig. 4.54 D10) shows distinctive recessed frames at the
entrance. Two naked women with necklaces flank the entrance, their hands
placed on the belly. There was a bird above each woman’s head, but one is
missing, the other one difficult to recognize on photos. A similar and probably
contemporaneous model is said to come from Karak in Jordan (Fig. 13;
Schroer 2007a: Fig. 8; Kletter 2015: 46 Fig. 4.55 D11). The women are deco-
rated with a scarf and jewelry and hold a hand drum in front of their left breast.
These two shrines might be later than they had been considered by Bretschnei-
der and others (11th century). There are several probably later terracotta mod-
els, which should be noted here briefly. One is now in the Moussaieff collec-
tion (Fig. 14; Maier and Dayagi-Mendels 2007: Fig. 1–2 and Pl. XX; Kletter
2015: Fig. 4.44 C9). The female drummers stand beside a guardian lion (only
one survived) at the entrance, palm capitals and female busts in the tympanum
complete this richly decorated model.
14
Compare the early Iron Age terracotta figurine from Taanach (Lapp 1964: 39–40 Fig.
21). Corded patterns are also known from friezes, e.g., on the Aḥiram sarcophagus from
Byblos, where they could be understood as the fringe of a blanket covering the
sarcophagus (Montet 1928–1929: Pl. 130; Schroer 2011: No. 962). A clay shrine from
Tel Reḥov, but dated to the 9th century, has an entrance that can be closed by a door and
a decorative band with notches above it (Kletter 2015: 36 A24). Three human heads (of
sphinxes?) are placed above the door.
15
Kletter distinguishes a “Jordanian” C-group with large frontons and a heterogeneous D-
group, the latter probably including pieces from the early Iron Age II (Kletter 2015: 41–
52). The selection of pieces in this article follows the iconography, not the typology of
the shrines, but tries to pay attention to the chronology.
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13 Fig. 14
150 SILVIA SCHROER
There are models without a goddess, one from the Hecht Museum with pil-
lars and leave capitals, and a dove sitting in the tympanum (Fig. 15; Schroer
2007: 434 Fig. 12; Kletter 2015: 42 Fig. 4.43), one with pilasters and volute
capitals from Tell el-Far‛ah North (Fig. 16; Keel and Uehlinger 1998: Fig.
188a; Kletter 2015: 45 Fig. 4.52 D7). In this case, instead of the dove or female
busts, we find a crescent moon symbol above the entrance. In addition to shrine
models with figures, the Yavneh clay shrine, which was published only recent-
ly (Fig. 17; Kletter 2015: 28 CS No. 47, Pl. 3,1–3; 22,1–4), has to be men-
tioned. Though it was made from a special clay, probably from the coast, its
date (850–750 BCE) and style do not differ from the Yavneh cult stands. It is
box-shaped and shows two free-standing, undecorated pillars and a flat roof. A
slope or corded line and nine knobs can be seen above the entrance. This frieze
reminds of the clay, but also of the limestone shrine of Khirbet Qeiyafa.
A recurring motif of the iconographical setting of the shrines are lions, lion
bases or protomes. Lions also appear on cult stands, and in general the shrine
models share some characteristic motifs with cult stands from the early Iron
Age. A fragmentary cult stand from Pella dated to the 11th or the 10th century
BCE does have a goddess with a lion figure on both sides and also braided
friezes (Fig. 18; Potts et al. 1985: 204 with Pl. 42; Schroer 2007a: Fig. 9). One
of the two well-known pottery stands from Taanach shows the goddess and
also the ibex and tree motifs between standing guardian lions (Lapp 1969: 42–
44). Doves are often encountered in connection with the clay shrines. But they
are more likely to appear in the tympanum rather than on the roof.16 On the
clay stands from Yavneh, which are somewhat later (2nd half of the 9th century
or early 8th century; see Kletter, Ziffer and Zwickel 2010: 196), doves are
completely lacking. Maybe plastic representations of doves were simply too
fragile so that they were avoided.
However, we do find lions, including goddesses standing on lions, windows
with a double frame, corded window sills, decorative bands with round appli-
cations, and also models with columns that have floral capitals (Fig. 19–21;
drawings by Ulrike Zurkinden). The blossom capitals with notches are similar
to the schematic applications with the three notches. So it seems that in Philis-
tine Yavneh this Canaanite set of motifs has been maintained longer than in
other regions, at least to the extent indicated by current excavation results.
One central message of the iconographic setting of the whole group of
models is the link between shrine entrance, women, lions and doves. The en-
trance, in one case with recessed frames, is flanked by two women, either na-
ked or robed, joining their hands underneath the breasts or holding a drum. In
place of the women, some items have columns or pilasters, which may have
volute capitals.
16
But see the cult stand from Beth-Shean with traces of three doves on the top, all of them
broken and lost (Rowe 1940: Pl. 17,1; 57A,1–2).
Fig. 15 Fig. 16
Fig. 17 Fig. 18
152 SILVIA SCHROER
Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Fig. 21
The iconographic program that is associated with temple models of this

type is Classical Syrian or Canaanite in its provenience. This can be illustrated
well with the famous wall painting of the entrance to the throne room from the
palace of Mari, which probably dates to the time of Yaḫdun-Lim (1810–1794
BCE). The picture, partially damaged in antiquity, portrays the temple of the
goddess Ishtar (Fig. 22; Margueron 2004: 424 and Pl. 56; Schroer 2008: No.
434). The king’s encounter with the goddess, who in typical pose places one
foot on a lion, can be seen in the upper part of the temple building. The scene is
flanked by LAMA-goddesses with typical intercessory gestures; another god
with a horned crown approaches from the right. In the lower part of the build-
ing fountain goddesses in long robes are visible. The temple is situated in a
large garden. Date palms are depicted on the outside, though just one of them
is completely preserved. Several men are shown climbing these palms to either
fertilize or harvest them. In the crown of the (preserved) palm is a large, over-
dimensional dove. Stylized or pruned trees near the temple also are part of the
garden. Guardian creatures with or without wings protect the temple precinct in
pairs, at the bottom bull-like creatures with human heads (the heads are not
well preserved) and above them sphinx-like creatures.
At the outer zone of the temple garden intercessory goddesses like those inside
the temple are visible. This Classical Syrian picture from Mari displays figures
and attributes of earlier Mesopotamian and Old Babylonian art. The dove and
fountain goddesses are elements with the clearest Syrian provenience.
The clay shrine from Khirbet Qeiyafa and similar decorated models take up
the stylized trees, the guardian creatures and the doves as iconographic ele-
ments. The naked or at least erotic goddesses at the entrance correspond to the
protective LAMA-goddesses of Syrian provenience, though these were
dressed. Even though the cult image in the shrine has not been preserved, one
can conclude from the iconographic setting that it would have portrayed a
goddess – not Ishtar, but one of the local Canaanite goddesses, who could also
be accompanied by lions.
Conclusions
The two temple models from Khirbet Qeiyafa were found in a cultic context. It
is unlikely to be coincidence that they were found so close to each other. Prob-
ably the limestone model originally stood on the small bamah in Room G (Gar-
finkel, supra page 35 with Fig. 29). It is not clear where the smaller clay shrine
would originally have been kept. Both models show commonalities, but also
marked differences. Both had a door that could be closed; with high probability
both originally contained a small cult image. It is rare that such figurines are
still found inside the shrine, especially if they were made out of metal and
therefore had a high material value.
154 SILVIA SCHROER
But the holes to attach doors, the holes in the back wall of the limestone
model to hold an assumed cult image, and the depression in front of the back
wall all are evidence that the shrines contained small images of deities, which
later were either plundered or brought into safety.
If the two shrine models are considered as a pair, a hierarchy is suggested
by their respective material and size. The limestone model is made out of dura-
ble material and relatively large, in its decoration it appears simple, but artisti-
cally advanced. The clay model is considerably smaller, made from less valua-
ble material, and decorated with figurative elements. The artist’s work is care-
ful, but not of high quality, as is shown, e.g., by the preserved lion. The models
represent two different types of shrines or cult rooms, one a long-room, the
other a broad-room temple. The limestone model is fairly unique in its appear-
ance, even if some evidence could be pointed out for its relationship with the
Egyptian tradition. The clay model corresponds in shape and decoration to the
types common in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nissinen and Münger have drawn
attention to the fact that the distribution of shrines with a round body is cen-
tered on the northern Jordan Valley (in both Cisjordan and Transjordan) and
that they show Mycenaean influence.17 The clay shrine demonstrably is associ-
ated with the worship of a goddess. It is tempting to interpret the two models as
the dwellings of a male, in this case higher-ranking god and his consort. But
this remains completely speculative. It cannot be excluded that the limestone
shrine also belonged to a goddess. Interestingly enough the recessed frame
entrance occurs at least once in connection with naked goddesses (Fig. 10). So
the two shrine models from Khirbet Qeiyafa, in spite of their obvious differ-
ences in material, measure, style and decorative elements, do not necessarily
refer to different cults or worshippers.
The connection made by Garfinkel between the triglyphs, in particular, and
the biblical texts in 1 Kings 6–8, which describe the different parts of the tem-
ple and the palace of Solomon, are interesting and do indeed illuminate some
quite obscure passages in the chapters in question. If an important temple was
somewhere nearby, it is certainly possible that features such as the triglyphs
would be emphasized in any model. But the temple in Jerusalem at the time of
David cannot have been a YHWH-temple built under David. If there was a
temple in Jerusalem at the time, it would have been an older temple dedicated
to a sun god, but according to Keel (2007: 221–337) this is unlikely. The tem-
ple of Jerusalem was only built under Salomon in the older precinct of a holy
place dedicated to the sun, which by that time was without a temple building.
In the interior of the Salomonic temple Canaanite and Phoenician traditions
were incorporated. This assumption is supported by the description of the inte-
rior and the artistic motifs, as well as the tradition of a construction contract
between Solomon and Hiram of Tyrus, which is incorporated into the report.
That the limestone model from Khirbet Qeiyafa with its unique architectural
17
Nissinen and Münger 2009: 135–137, including a catalogue of artefacts.
Fig. 22
characteristics also showed these influences is possible. But a direct association

probably cannot be made. Nevertheless, Garfinkel’s assumption that in Khirbet
Qeiyafa we have early representative types of a developing Judahite architec-
ture is debatable.
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158 SILVIA SCHROER
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Afterthoughts on Qēyāfah
Ernst Axel KNAUF
The first notion that comes to the reader’s mind after perusing this volume
probably is identical with the first impressions to be gained from any other
publication on Khirbet Qeiyafa: Qēyāfah is controversial. Controversy, on the
other hand, is a strong indicator of relevance. For the history of Israel and Ju-
dah in the early 10th century BCE, Qēyāfah is important, and everybody agrees
to that.
It is controversial whether Qēyāfah was part of the kingdom of David, of
Saul, or of Gath. With gates leading to the west and south, but not to the north
and east, it looks more like an eastern border fortress of Gath rather than a
southwestern stronghold of a polity based in Jerusalem or Gibeon. There can
be no doubt, however, that it was not garrisoned by Philistines. The band or
company that manned it came from the mountains. This does not make
Qēyāfah the true site of Ziklag, but it would provide the historical background
to David’s sojourn at Ziklag (David was hardly the only boss of an ‛Apiru-
band whom Gath took into its service).
It is controversial whether the Qēyāfah ostracon can be read (and if so,
how) or not. The arguments for ‘not really’ seem to be stronger, at least for the
time being. This might not be coincidental. All the readable inscriptions in 10th
century Proto-Canaanite are short ‘labels’ incised into pottery, or alphabets.
Not every ‘culture of writing’ produced the whole range of documents to
which we are accustomed. The Bedouin of eastern Syria in the Roman period
(the so-called Safaites) had a script for their Arabic, which they used exclusive-
ly for graffiti (and tombs). For commercial or administrative purposes, they
had to turn to Nabataean Aramaic or even to Greek – their Arabic had not yet
the words and the syntax for dealings as such. The Germanic tribes of the Ro-
man period had a script for their languages, the rhunes, which again were sole-
ly in epigraphic use. When they formed kingdoms of their own, their adminis-
trative language had to be borrowed from the Church. Only Latin had the vo-
cabulary and the scribal practice needed for administration. There are indica-
tions that the administrative language of pre-Omride Israel was Phoenician.
The scribe of the Qēyāfah ostracon might have attempted to produce a text for
which his language (and writing skills) were not yet ripe.
It should no longer be controversial that the hill people living at Qēyāfah
worshipped several deities, and in the form of anthropological statuary. This
need not necessarily dissociate them from the people over whom Saul (or Da-
vid) ruled.
160 ERNST AXEL KNAUF
Controversies over the construction of 10th century history will continue,

but the interpretation of the Qēyāfah assemblage will also continue to be of
relevance to all possible positions.
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About this book
Excavations at the Early Iron Age site of Khirbet Qeiyafa (Israel), directed
from 2007 to 2013 by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor under the auspices of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority, have
attracted considerable scholarly and media attention since the very second
season, when the discovery of an inscribed ostracon sparked controversies
over the site’s historical significance and nature. Located at the entrance of
the Elah Valley, protected by a casemate wall and two monumental gateways,
the settlement of Qeiyafa existed for barely half a century. Its dating and the
correlation of the archaeological evidence with the regional history, not least
the rise of an early Judahite monarchy, have become matters of intense aca-
demic debate. Resulting from a colloquium of the Swiss Society for Ancient
Near Eastern Studies, this volume offers a condensed report by main excava-
tor Yosef Garfinkel as well as several in-depth studies on archaeological, his-
torical, epigraphical, iconographical and biblical issues.
Zu diesem Band
Die von der Hebräischen Universität Jerusalem und der Israelischen Altertümer-
verwaltung unter Leitung von Yosef Garfinkel und Saar Ganor von 2007 bis 2013
durchgeführten Ausgrabungen in Khirbet Qeiyafa, am Eingang des Terebinthen-
tals (Elah Valley), erregten von Anfang an erhebliches Aufsehen. Schon im zwei-
ten Grabungsjahr wurde ein beschriftetes Ostrakon gefunden, das in der Fach-
welt kontrovers diskutiert wurde. Da die von einer Mauer mit zwei Toren
umgebene Siedlung nur während einer relativ kurzen Zeitspanne von 50 Jahren
existierte, sind auch ihre Datierung und die Korrelation des archäologischen Be-
funds mit der frühen judäischen Monarchie Gegenstand zahlreicher Debatten
geworden. Der Band enthält Beiträge einer Tagung der Schweizerischen Gesell-
schaft für Orientalische Altertumswissenschaft. Ausgehend vom Bericht des
Grabungsleiters Yosef Garfinkel werden archäologische, historische und bibel-
wissenschaftlich relevante, aber auch epigraphische und ikonographische The-
men diskutiert und vertieft.

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Zurich Open Repository and

Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah: Papers Presented at a Colloquium of the

Edited by: Schroer, Silvia ; Münger, Stefan

Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich

Originally published at:

Founded by Othmar Keel

Published on behalf of the BIBLE+ORIENT Foundation

Silvia Schroer / Stefan Münger (eds.)

Academic Press Fribourg

Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Orientalische Altertumswissenschaft

Publication subsidized by the Swiss Academy

Internet general catalogue:

Camera-ready text submitted by the volume editors

© 2017 by Academic Press Fribourg and

ISBN: 978-3-7278-1791-5 (Academic Press Fribourg)

Ernst Axel KNAUF

Bern, August 2016

Khirbet Qeiyafa is a 2.3-hectare site located in the Shephelah region of Israel.

Part I: The Data

Fig. 2: Map of Khirbet Qeiyafa and its vicinity.

Stratum Period Type of occupation

Table 1: The settlement history of Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Fig. 5: Plan of the Iron Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa.

ing, a fortified farmstead of the Byzantine period whose maximum measure-

4. The Iron Age City

Watchtower and stable

Southern gate Western gate

Large open piazzas

A peripheral belt of houses abutting the city wall

Building Courtyards Corridors Rooms Casemates Total spaces

Table 3: Summary of the different spaces in Area C by building (Fig. 17).

A large pillared storage building

A major public building

The Pottery Assemblage

Metal and Stone Tools

Scarabs, Seals and Other Small Finds

a. Trade connections within a radius of 10–20 km: Pottery vessels of Ashdod

Cultural phase Cultural characteristics Sites

Fig. 25: Cultic Room G in Building C3.

Cultic Room G in Building C3

Cultic Room J in Building D1

Cultic Room G and Related Cultic Contexts in Building C10

a. A “Model shrine” made of clay. This item is 11 cm wide and 16 cm high

Fig. 35: Drawing of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon by Ada Yardeni.

9. Royal Architecture of the Iron Age Levant

Part II: Interpreting Qeiyafa in the Context of Modern Research

In order to understand the current heated debate on the interpretations of Khir-

1. Phase I. The Mythological Paradigm

2. Phase II. The Low Chronology Paradigm

3. Phase III: The Ethnic Identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa

(Na’aman 2010; Lederman and Bunimovitz 2014), a site of the Kingdom of

4. The Historical King David Kingdom of Judah

Part III: Qeiyafa and the Biblical Tradition

1. The Ancient Name

Location Chronology Meaning of name

3. The Model Shrine and Solomon’s Palace and Temple

The Khirbet Qeiyafa Archaeological Project is directed by Yosef Garfinkel and